Tinsel wigs for very Perry party
● From prancing with giant flamingos to swinging around an oversized rose, the moment Katy Perry rose from the stage at the Ticketpro Dome in Joburg last Saturday evening she had the crowd lapping up her every move.
This was the final bow of her first South African tour and I found myself taking in the OTT candy-coated spectacle after M-Net invited a sprinkling of VIPs to what it called “The Ultimate Katy Perry Experience”.
Heading through a sea of teenage girls in tinsel wigs into the VIP entrance and onto a raised deck with a great view of the stage, I see someone short enough to be a teenybopper but who makes many a grown man of the dodgy persuasion squirm.
That’s Devi Sankaree Govender, the TV reporter who has door-stopped disgraced auctioneer Rael Levitt and got embattled former Eskom executive Matshela Koko gagging.
Er, aren’t you a little too old to be here, I ask the fearless dynamo, to which she jokes: “I am trying to act young. You know Carte Blanche is turning 30 so I tell people I am only 32.”
The truth, though, turns out to be that she and hubby Perumal Moodley decided to treat their kids Sayuran, 14, and Kaiyuree, 17 — who’s a whiz with a set of golf clubs, boasting a plus-one handicap — to a rocking night out.
Also taking in Katy’s repertoire of surprisingly familiar tunes from her breakout hit I Kissed a Girl to Roar and Firework, were folk like The Voice South Africa season 2 winner Craig Lucas, Dancing with the Stars winner Connell Cruise and spunky TV presenter Nomuzi Mabena.
Elsewhere, I spotted Lalla Hirayama, there with her moustache-sporting beau, Kent Henderson, and said hello to Chris Jaftha, who brought along his girlfriend, Galya Oster.
And while the teens sipped their slushies, we were served more grown-up drinks and a smorgasbord of snacks ranging from mini beef club sandwiches and honey sesame seed chicken in choux pastries to bowls of butternut panzerotti and a lamb carvery. As for dessert? Mini choc éclairs, mini custard slices and red velvet cake triangles. ●