CARVIN A NICHE
A Durban comedian pays tribute to the people who provide his jokes
DURBANITES, Carvin Goldstone is watching you. And he will imitate your every move with precision — and hilarity. For Goldstone, 33, a “retired” journalist, observation came naturally. The impersonations were an afterthought.
“When I got back to the newsroom after doing interviews, I would do impressions while debriefing my news editors. The guys would have a giggle and say it was spot-on, that I should do it seriously as stand-up,” he says.
Nine years later, Goldstone is a full-time, award-winning comic with a local and international audience. His slow, nasal impression of Durban’s deputy mayor, Logie Naidoo, could sanction all sorts of fraud.
But it is the Everyman impressions that got him bandwidth. He does a killer “oppressed husband”, whose wife talks so much he has forgotten how to speak. A brilliant “saved aunty” from the ’hood, whose faith is so strong, she prays over a gangster with a gunshot wound rather than taking him to the hospital. Or the “slow learner” who confuses cholera with chlorine. “Why they put it in the water, if it’s killing people in Africa?”
Goldstone says: “The understanding is that you all know a guy like that. Impersonations are difficult to get right. You have to get the tone, hand gestures, everything. There is a fine line between genius and mocking. Nobody wants to be mocked but they will laugh at themselves if it is done properly,” he says.
Goldstone has taken his impressions around South Africa, to Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Australia and New Zealand. This month he will perform in the Middle East.
“I didn’t realise I had such a big audience internationally until I was approached by promoters. My one-man shows were sold out in Australia and New Zealand. The expats were watching my YouTube videos,” he says.
Goldstone may make light of his upbringing in the previously coloured township, Newlands East, but it isn’t all a joke.
Commenting on the murder of a teenager from the area last year, he questioned why the coloured community believes they should “never back down from a fight”.
“I call it coloured bravado,” he said in a Facebook post.
“The coloured community here behave similarly to many minority communities around the world.”
He thinks the problem is insecurity. “We are insecure about who we are and where we going and our place in community and country. We feel trapped and vulnerable.
“I need to instil in my own son a confidence that is far removed from coloured bravado. A sense of self that says who he is will be determined by how hard he works in life and how he strives for the greater good of all South Africans.”
It is part of why he won’t be moving on from his home city. “I wake up in the morning and look out and the sun is always shining in Durban.”
And its inhabitants are fodder for brilliant material. Shoulders back next time you go shopping, Carvin Goldstone is watching. LS