Godfather of comedy in PE
One of the “godfathers” of South African comedy, Joe Parker, will be in Port Elizabeth to take a stroll down memory lane over dinner in the Baakens Valley on Saturday night.
Parker will perform at 7.30pm at Remo’s Italian restaurant in one of the first shows of the restaurant’s upcoming Comedy Night series. After the show, patrons would be able watch rugby on the big screen from 10pm as SA takes on France.
Parker has been a regular visitor to this city dating back to stints at the then Lillies Bar at the old Summerstrand Holiday Inn and at the Elizabeth Hotel in the late 1970s and 1980s.
In a 44-year career, Parker has won a reputation for his earthy, adult sense of humour, displaying a cheeky defiance of all things politically correct.
He also isn’t shy to pull out his guitar for a few rib-tickling songs such as evergreen renditions of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Curry in the Sun.
Parker and his partner Lindsay Earl opened Africa’s only comedy club – Parker’s Comedy and Jive – in Montecasino in 2008, and this has featured South Africa’s top comics, upand-coming comedians and regular visits from comics on the circuits of the UK, the US, Canada and Australia.
Dinner theatre comedy fans also can next look forward to Mark Banks appearing at Remo’s in Mark the Herald Angels Sing on December 22.
Banks is comedian with a decades-long career and if Parker may be called the godfather, then Banks is “the grand dowager uncle of the South African comedy underground”. ● Tickets cost R150 each, with bookings of eight or more R130 each, available through Computicket or by calling Wendy on 082-6616921.
‘Parker has won a reputation for his earthy, adult sense of humour’