Cape Town’s winter comedic tonic, the Jive Cape Town Funny Festival, returns to the Baxter theatre next month for its 24th season, from Monday June 5 to Sunday July 2.
The variety of acts keep the show exciting and different and this year’s line-up includes international act Daredevil Chicken, a couple who famously started performing together when they ran out of money on their honeymoon in Spain. They made a comedy show and performed it on Las Ramblas, an iconic street in the heart of Barcelona, famous for its street performers.
They have kept their honeymoon going ever since, creating and performing their signature routines around the world at festivals, in theatre, circus, and cabaret and on television. Their unique brand of comedy combines original characters and absurdity with magic, physical comedy, burlesque, singing, puppetry and… bananas.
Swimming in the waters of classic vaudeville and cresting the wave of interactive madness, Daredevil Chicken’s side-splitting antics will test the lines between reality and surrealism, humour and taboo. They will perform for the full festival.
Started way back in 1997 by publicist and comedy lover Eddy Cassar, the Funny Festival has grown into the country’s oldest and largest comedy festival, showcasing top local and international speciality acts alongside the country’s foremost comics in a gala showcase.
For the past two years, Cape Community Media, which publishes 15 community newspapers, including this one, has been the print media partner.
Heading the comedians is award-winning actor and comic Alan Committie, who has become the resident master of ceremonies for the past 13 years.
Alan will introduce a riot of local comedians, including Marc Lottering (Tuesday June 20 to Saturday June 24), Dalin Oliver (full festival), Schalk Bezuidenhout (Monday June 5 to Saturday June 17) and Riaad Moosa (Sunday June 25, Tuesday June 27 and Saturday July 1). Joining them will be local mentalist Larry Soffer (full festival); considered to be the best on the continent and musical guru and funny man Emo Adams (full festival; excluding Friday June 30).
The Jive Cape Town Funny Festival has over the past nine years developed a feeder competition, where aspiring comics present their talent in the hope of winning a coveted spot on the Funny Festival.
Presented by MTN and the City of Cape Town, the Jive Funny Championships is held over the entire month of May, culminating in a final competition in late May. The winning act gets to perform on the Jive Funny Festival stage.
“I cannot wait for the Jive Funny Festival to return to the Baxter theatre in June,” says Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis. “This is one of the highlights on the Cape Town calendar, and undoubtedly the premier comedy event in South Africa. Capetonians possess a truly unique sense of humour, and it’s going to be wonderful to see our best local comedy talent sharing the stage with some remarkable international acts.”
Smiling and laughter are integral to our characteristics as human beings, and hence the festival’s beneficiary is Operation Smile, a non-profit medical organisation which provides safe surgery for children and adults born with cleft conditions. Operation Smile collects coins from the audience during the month-long festival, which is used to pay for cleft palate operations.
The Jive Cape Town Funny Festival has become a popular fund-raising event for charities, schools, sports groups and clubs and the festival offers generous discounts for group bookings.
Tickets for the festival are available from Webtickets and for group bookings, contact Eddy Cassar at eddy@eddycassarpr.co.za or 082 450 3151 or Carmen Kearns at the Baxter at carmen.kearns@uct.ac.za
For more information, log on to www.funnyfestival.co.za
