Stand-up comedy in South Africa

Stand-up comedy in South Africa

Currently being written

Terminology

• Stand-up comedy

Stand-up comedy (also called "stand-up") is comedy that generally is delivered by a solo performer speaking directly to the audience in some semblance of a spontaneous manner. It had its origins in the comic lecturers, such as Mark Twain, who toured the USA in the 19th century. It began to emerge as populist entertainment in vaudeville in the early decades of the 20th century.

Stand-up comedians

South African artists who have performed in stand-up comedy include:

• Alyn Adams
• Mark Banks
• Johnny Campher
• Alan Committie
• Bevan Cullinan
• Ian Fraser
• Barry Hilton
• Lawrence Hilton
• Shimmy Isaacs
• Marc Lottering
• Pierre Malherbe
• Mel Miller
• Riaad Moosa
• Soli Philander
• Nik Rabinowitz
• Cy Saks
• Lindie Stander
• Irene Stephanou
• John Vlismas

Stand-up comedy as theatre

Several plays have been written in the format of stand-up comedy. Some of these include:

• I Dance Alone (Mark Hoeben, 1994)
• Not Exactly PC! (Mike van Graan, 1996)
• Born Free (Mike van Graan, 2014)
• Pay Back the Curry (Mike van Graan, 2016)
• Land Acts (Mike van Graan, 2018)

It's a Funny Country

It's a Funny Country was launched by the subscription television network M-Net in the mid-1990s. As part of a strategy to develop locally produced comedy series for broadcast on the M-Net channel, particularly to be scheduled in its “Open Time” window, the broadcaster staged a series of country-wide stand-up comedy competitions at a time when very few stand-up comics could make a living out of the art form. M-Net sponsored the establishment of intimate comedy venues around the country and provided wide publicity for emerging stand-up comedians in the popular television programmes they compiled, marketed and broadcast. They also sponsored the most promising new comedians to appear at the world-renowned annual Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal, Canada. The It's a Funny Country project resulted in a number of specialist comedians being established as working professionals and the arts festivals provided an ideal opportunity for these performers to stage their acts in a most receptive environment.

Sources

https://www.britannica.com/art/stand-up-comedy

Johann van Heerden (2008)][1]

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