Funny Man

Another long day, another tired me, another late post. In filling my weekends with housework and family time, I not only miss the opportunity to blog, but also the opportunity to keep up with what’s going on in the world – and the blog fodder that the news provides. This is an issue, so I had to go a couple of days back.

One thing we did catch this weekend was Nik Rabinowitz’s You Can’t Be Serious stand-up show at the Baxter. Very funny guy, with a keen eye for observing and finding the funny in South Africa and South Africanisms. It’s humour I wouldn’t have understood if I hadn’t been here observing the same stuff for seven years.

Here he is on the BBC’s Mock The Week in June last year:

The thing is, though he does the languages thing very well (although the knock knock joke is wearing a little thin now), all he is actually doing in this sketch is repeating the local football commentary. Because yes, that’s exactly what you will hear on a Xhosa radio station when the football in on. And yes, I suppose it’s quite amusing if you’re not used to it.

I can’t help but think, however, that my UK stand-up act would fall flat were I to bring my rendition of some English football commentary and a knock knock joke to South African television.