Comics’ Choice Awards: Laughter crosses the language barrier

It’s absolutely brilliant that I now speak the wrong language for the Savanna Comics’ Choice Awards.

A few years ago our comedy industry was as white as most of South Africa’s other industries. A few black and coloured comics scattered here and there doing the spade work, but the comedians most in command were as pale male as the bosses of most JSE-listed businesses.

Now? Well hell. If you don’t speak Xhosa and Zulu you’re not going to be laughing anywhere near as much as the predominantly young, black audience around you.

And some of these comics are so funny that you’re creasing up at their actions and the sheer unbridled mirth they’re generating even if you’re not sure what the punchline is.

It’s a really positive step that the Savanna Comics’ Choice Awards now reflect such a diverse comedy scene compared to five years ago when they began.

The boom of black urban comedy is the healthiest thing to have happened to our entertainment scene, driven by figures like Kedibone Mulaudzi, founder of the Soweto Comedy Festival, and the other older comics plugging away week after week, year after year.

Their groundwork has made comedy an actual career choice and an aspirational goal, and the result showed in the multicultural melee the awards celebrated at the weekend. Diversity seemed to be the common theme of the deliberate mish-mash of a show we’ve come to expect, with singers, graphics, a live band, several sketches and lots of different presenters.

There was a new award this year for the best non-English comedian, and the recipient, Mashabela Galane, had the audience literally screaming with laughter.

While it’s great to have an award recognising vernacular comics, every category now feels like a level playing field even without that affirmative black economic empowerment. Young comedienne Khanyisa Bunu did some hilarious satire as the winner of the Audience Choice award. She read out the acceptance speech she’d been hanging onto since she was first nominated a couple of years ago, wishing Mandela a speedy recovery and expressing shock at the Oscar Pistorius shenanigans. Very clever, and she pulled it off beautifully.

Other highlights were a hugely funny, forceful spot from pithy Nina Hastie, and Schalk Bezuidenhout with a delicious sketch from his innocent youth in the boys’ choir.

The production itself had its flaws. It started 45 minutes late, with its self-inflicted habitual tardiness meaning even those who arrive on time don’t bother going in because nothing will happen for at least half an hour. Then Alan Committie, the first presenter, berated us for coming in late. Yeah yeah. You guys started it.

And the idea of holding an after-party in a completely different venue is ludicrously wrong. Personally, when it got to 11.30pm and the show had only just finished, the thought of bed was more appealing than driving out of Montecasino, crossing the main road and parking up again to find a party. Maybe that’s because I’m old and crotchety, not young, wired, witty and clutching an award.

A second theme that ran insidiously through the show was that while audiences adore Trevor Noah, the love isn’t shared by his fellow comedians. It started with some snippy comments at the entrance when journalists asked the arriving comics how they felt about Noah’s success. Committie, who’s far too good to begrudge someone else’s fame, summed it up nicely in a nugget of advice for the audience: “Don’t ask us about Noah,” he grinned. “Yes he’s the best thing ever, but talk about us.”

Yet the undercurrent still flowed. When Noah won the Flying Solo Award for the best one-man show, his award was collected by a ‘friend’ of his – the devil, played by Christopher Steenkamp in red face paint and a cloak.

For the Comedian of the Year category it was obvious Noah should win. How could he not, after being announced as the new host of The Daily Show.

This year undoubtedly belongs to Noah, and so the award went to … Tumi Morake. She walked on stage looking flabbergasted, accepted her award, then composed herself and launched into a comedy riff. But the joke was on us. Committie came back on, apologising that the wrong name had been announced and haggling with Moraki to take the award back. Very edgy, very funny, and Moraki and Committie are as good at acting as they are at comedy to pull it off so convincingly.

So Noah rightly won, and of course he wasn’t there, so we watched an invidious skit by ZA News where his puppet likeness sings Unaffordable, set to the turn of Nat King Cole’s Unforgettable.

Next year the Comic of the Year and Flying Solo awards will be an open field again, because Noah is no longer our comedian. He belongs to the whole world now. Hopefully by then more of our comedians will have followed in his global success. You can disparage him if you must, guys, but rather stand and applaud and aspire to the same. DM

www.lesleystones.co.za

Winners of the Savanna Comic’s Choice Awards 2015:

The Savanna Newcomer Comic: Yaseen Barnes

The Intermediate Comic: Schalk Bezuidenhout

The Comics’ Pen: Christopher Steenkamp

The Best Friend of Comedy: Goliath & Goliath

The Flying Solo Comic: Trevor Noah

The Non-English Comic: Mashabela Galane

The Comic Of The Year: Trevor Noah

The Savanna Audience Choice Comic: Khanyisa Bunu

The Lifetime Achiever Award: Joe Mafela