Studies have shown a decline in national pride due to the recent lackluster performance of our national teams, many have even resorted to laying the blame on others, from crooked referees to misunderstood rules.
I say “Man Up!” if your fuckup your performance, admit it and learn from it! With national pride being at an all-time low (since Brendon Huntley tried to hustle his way into Canada crying wolf and begging for refugee status… but that’s another story) I was mildly curious to see how my personal favourite national team would fare in maintaining their position as the world’s first team of Comedy.
Judging by the number of people who braved the long (and mostly boring journey) to Brakpan, I wasn’t the only one who needed a pick-me-upper.If you didn’t have a ticket at this point then you might have as well accepted that you’d have to see the DVD (if they recorded one) as the show had been sold out days in advance, this was readily evident in the diversity of the multitudes that gathered to enjoy the finest in South African comedy.
I had seen the trailer (see above) before the night but it was still damn funny when they played it before the show started and there was a ZAnews cameo with a special broadcast from Tim, which had us all in stitches before the first comedian had even climbed onto the stage! We had a live telecast to Div (outgoing Bok coach) who had everyone giggling when he said the reason they got booted out the world cup was that they had been told they were playing Samoans (Some Ouens) and they got to the game and found Australians!
Mark Banks
It was time for the show to start and the ‘Coach’ Mark Banks held his own as MC enthralling us with timeless gags that had even him laughing so hard he needed to hold on to the mic stand to support his balance! He introduced each of the comedians with such flair and he set the bar high for each of them, which didn’t prove to be a problem as the first team had brought their A game for the night.
Nik Rabinowitz
First up was Nick Rabinowitz “The world’s only Xhosa speaking Jew” who had us in stitches with his jokes on the Dalai Lama\Desmond Tutu debacle. No mercy was spared as he mimicked the religious leaders with such impressive proficiency. Next up was Ndumiso Lindi (Who was amazing as Barry Hilton's substitute) who I have to admit I knew little of before last night, his opener wasn’t the best but once he gained momentum he was on fire. Stuart Taylor followed and he gave away pimp trade secret #675 “When it comes to women, it is not the gift that matters but the presentation”, which had women laughing in shock. He also asked the eternal question “when young girls are growing up they start with training bras, but what are they in fact training for?”
The night progressed on a high note with killer performances by Loyiso Gola, John Vlismas and Trevor Noah. However, the highlight performance of the night has to have been Eugene Khoza’s as he tackled the universal issue of infidelity. This usually being a very sensitive subject didn’t seem to deter him as he broke it down for all the squares in the audience. I definitely wanna hear more of his material.
Eugene Khoza
Collectively the boys spared no punches as they made fun of every topic ranging from race, religion, sex and politics. It was fun to finally bring laughter to the small town of Brakpan (okay, enough with the Brakpan jokes……. But eish, the East rand ne). One odd thing I observed was the different reaction within the races to the race jokes, for a second I started thinking ‘these guys need to calm down a bit coz they’re gonna make these white people kills us with all these jokes about Brakpan’, but luckily they can take a joke (after its been explained five times….. okay I promise that’s the last one…lol)
I would definitely advise anyone to ensure that they see this stellar cast anytime they are in town as they have really earned the position of ONLY SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL TEAM WORTH SUPPORTING. When I left Carnival City it was with a bit of my national pride restored……
