Joe Barber
The personality Joe Barber
The name of a character in a series of comedies, set in a Cape Town, and written and performed by Oscar Petersen, David Isaacs and Heinrich Reisenhofer (1999-2010). Based on the shop of a real Cape Town barber, Mr Joseph Swain, who had named his shop “Joe Barber” (an Afrikaans pun - "Joe" being a Cape-Afrikaans way of pronouncing "jou", Afrikaans for "your" - i.e "Your Barber"). Mr Swain's personality, the pun and his shop had become the inspiration for the series of hits plays by the same name. Swain went on to play a key role by supporting performances of the plays and it became tradition that on the last performance of every season he would take his bow at the end of the show.
The Joe Barber series of plays
A comedy by Oscar Peterson, Heinrich Reisenhofer and David Isaacs. (Originally called Meet Joe Barber in 1999.) The title is a play on the Afrikaans word "jou", meaning "your", and the play (and later the series of plays) dealt with daily events in a District Six barber shop. Inspired by many visits to a barber shop in Parkwood, called "Joe Barber" ("your barber"), where the authors observed the clients, listening to the stories and jokes. In this way, the characters of Joe and Gamat developed and a Cape theatrical phenomenon was born.
The real "Joe Barber", a Mr Joseph Swain, played a key role in supporting the production over the years, and it is a tradition that on the last performance of each season he takes a bow at the end of the show.
First performed by Oscar Peterson, Heinrich Reisenhofer and David Isaacs at Skokiaan Theatre Bar, Cape Town 1999. The original Just Joe Barber, was followed by the sequel Joe Barber and Boeta Gamat Too.
By 2014 it had become the most successful and longest-running comedy series in Cape Town. Performed widely at the various festivals, it has won a number of awards (e.g. a Kanna award for comedy at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (KKNK) in 2003). A spin off has been a TV series.
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