Arts Festival comedy lineup offers laughs a-plenty

COMEDY on the National Arts Festival Fringe starting next week is looking exceptional.

Festival spokeswoman Gilly Hemphill said: “Comedy is infamous for keeping Grahamstown in good spirits, and this year promises to be no exception.”

Festival institution Nicholas Ellenbogen ( Give that man a Bells!) is back with The Mayan Raiders.

Siv Ngesi, Standard Bank Ovation Award-winner for Dekaf, is bringing a new show, Race Card.

Award-winning Durban actresses Mpume Mthombeni and Shika Budhoo ask ‘ who’s to blame for the end of the world’ in Dhaveshan Govender’s comedic take on Armageddon, Twelve.

For its 10-year anniversary, Matthew Ribnick’s Chilli Boy also returns to birthplace.

Of interest to the Eastern Cape are the return, after a seven-year drought, of Albany farming duo, Alan Weyer and Brian Mullins, in Boet and Swaer.

Surfers and surf culture followers are offered Bru, in which Saffas Sandi Dlangalala and Mike von Bardeleben try to escape their purgatory of the big city in search of the freedom of the waves.

Josh Martin penned down the predicaments of a failing mortuary in Autopsy, whilst Brent Palmer delves into the consciences of two small-time thieves for some wry humour in Bench.

Festival hit Mark Palmer is back with Best Medicine, and also back for its final year in Grahamstown is Vanessa Harris and Ash Searle’s

its

Grahamstown hugely Dance.

Searle and Harris, also play the “perfect” couple who take off on a date night from hell exposing the foolish facts, highlights and low blows of a committed relationship in Love @ First Fight.

Staying on the theme of entertainment industry madness, Stacey Howell mixes it all up in Bitches be Crazy , and, not too far from that concept, Nicola Barbour is Bridezilla. Stuart Taylor, who explores the

popular

Big

Boys

Don’t ups and downs on the rollercoaster ride of aspiration in Money’s Too Tight to Mention, and Martin Evans and Rob van Vuuren team up to host Pants on Fire! –a late night comedy gig with guests like Andrew Buckland, Arno Carstens, Chris Chameleon and Warren Robertson, amongst others.

For the 2012 edition of the popular Butlers series, a Bollywood movie star is thrust into an undercover operation in the household of a wealthy crime boss, in Butlers & Bunny Chows.

Lynita Crofford plays a woman fast approaching 50, who is determined, after a decade’s drought, to embrace her sexuality in Sex in the Suburbs .

Typical of farce, Wrong Day survives on spontaneous reactions and corrections of mistakes, with Hamilton Dhlamini, Mandla Gaduka and Barileng Malebye. David Kibuuka will attempt to explain how David wasn’t built in a day.

Funni Galore, which Hemhill said sets no new cultural benchmarks or in fact teaches one anything at all, is jam-packed with irreverence

Jacobus van Heerden is Le Chop Royale, who goes all out with songs and skits.

Handspring award-winning company, The Space Behind The Couch, presents Out of Order, a steampunk, Boer War, bromantic comedy about flying machines, assassination attempts, friendship and koeksisters.

Hemphill said: “This years fringe also features productions in performance art, public art, the Arena, student theatre and film and jazz programmes.

Visit www.nationalartsfestival. for more information — mikel@dispatch.co.za