Madinga’s ‘Problem Child’ builds bridges across the social divide through laughter

In 2018, Loyiso Madinga was appointed as a correspondent for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and was honoured with the role of hosting the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers Awards ceremony in New York. You might have seen him on Netflix with his half-hour show, Long Way From My Village.

Live on stage in a show called Problem Child he’ll impress you as a smart guy with excellent comic timing and a skill for cross-cultural accents and mannerisms. He covers a wide range of topics, including jokes about onomatopoeia and a hilarious riff about land restitution.

The best way to describe Madinga is cute and loveable, although there are a couple of slightly naughtier jokes in his routine, so he obviously tailors his content to suit the surroundings. “Know your audience,” he says, as he jokes about some of his less successful comedic forays.

Since a Sandton audience is largely white and middle class, he packs the show with jokes about white people at a level that creates laughs without offending.
You could argue that that’s not enough, since whiteys deserve a lashing, not a gentle ribbing, for their historic and sometimes current actions. Too true. But Madinga leaves that to the politicians and has chosen to approach the social divide with healing, not more dynamite. This gentle teasing with truisms will be too safe for some, but laughter can build bridges that anger or bitterness can’t.



When he mimics himself as a schoolboy, lying about how this poor rural kid spent his holidays to try to fit in with the affluent white kids you just want to hug him. And apologise. He makes you laugh about apartheid, and as long as he’s laughing too, that kind of feels okay.

When he talks about his admiration for kids learning subjects in their third or fourth language, it shines a light on the hurdles still present in schools and universities today and reminds you why it’s a bigger struggle for black students to achieve excellent grades. Obvious when you think about it, but do we ever?

He chats about the upcoming elections too, saying: “We need to talk to each other. We have a lot of politicians but no leaders.” And he makes the great point that South Africans have grown accustomed to things that shouldn’t be normal. This whole country needs trauma counselling, he reckons. These messages and deeper thoughts are woven into the comedy underline why he fits in so well with the format of The Daily Show.

There’s a support act in the form of Mo Mothebe, who tells us he doesn’t perform under his real name Tshireletso, because that just makes white people smile awkwardly. Another dose of cross-cultural teasing built on the truth that hopefully makes people wonder if they couldn’t make just a little more effort with pronunciation. Or respect, or friendliness.

Mothebe also has an intellectual streak, a warm stage presence and creates a good vibe with the audience, despite a tendency to address one side more than the other.

Together Mothebe and Madinga in Problem Child present a sophisticated class of comedy that includes an exhortation to socialise more across the racial boundaries, and their work helps to achieve exactly that.

Black comedy in Sandton’s plush and intimate theatre. An excellent move. DM


Loyiso Madinga in Problem Child runs at Sandton’s Auto & General Theatre on the Square until 31 March. Tickets from Computicket (www.computicket.com) or from the theatre on 011-883-8606