Pick a Box and Make Laugh, Not War with AN AUDIENCE WITH PIETER-DIRK EISH at Theatre On The Bay

Pieter-Dirk Uys's new look at South Africa and the world around us in 2015, AN AUDIENCE WITH PIETER-DIRK EISH!, is a veritable national assembly of this South African legend's cluster of satirical characters, some which have been firm favourites with Uys's audiences since the 1980s. While it has always been Uys's aim to remind South Africans where they come from, the celebrated satisrist says that it "is more of a necessity now to celebrate where we are going."

In AN AUDIENCE WITH PIETER-DIRK EISH!, Uys lines up characters and stories: some old, some new, some borrowed and some blue. Does history repeat itself and turn tragedy into farce? Maybe on some minor levels of stupidity, says Uys, thinking for instance of the famed Gupta Wedding Fiasco and the Nkandla Firepool Gala, but - in his words - "I don't really believe that history does repeat itself in South Africa. Here it just rhymes: from apartheid to tripartite; from amandla to Nkandla!"

Like that great old Springbok Radio show PICK A BOX, audiences of the show will be able to choose a number and Uys will expose what is in that box, performing the character whose clothing and props lie within. Also ad-libbing links from box to box, Uys promises that every performance will be different. He says, "The challenge of having 20 numbered boxes on the stage and remaining calm enough to throw myself at the mercy of the choices of every night's audience is a bit crazy. There is usually no democracy on my stage. There I am the Vladimir Putin of theatre. I know what I do; where I do it; how I do it, and when I do it. So that starting in a suit can easy and smoothly end the show in a dress. But now I am at the mercy of a lottery!"

Evita Bezuidenhout, now in her 80th year, is the Sophia Loren of the gang. "I know how grumpy people get when they don't see her in the show," says Uys. "That's a chance they and I have to take. I'll encourage them to pretend they're in Parliament, looking at twenty MPs sitting in a row. Then try and choose the one with a brain! So good luck with finding Mrs B!" He continues, "As so many of the characters in the chorus line are our vibrant and inspiring politicians, maybe most members of the audience will call the show 'Kies 'n Doos'!"

Other new gems waiting to be exposed in the boxes will be the recently discovered real Rubicon Speech that PW Botha was meant to have made on August 15 1985. There is also the elderly gentleman in Tamboerskloof who has lost his job because he can't manage the world of Twitter and Facebook pokes, only to discover the best days of his life. A tired member of a Cape Minstrel troupe will celebrate his love-hate relationship with a City that still denies him her motherly love. Angela Merkel pops in after a bad hair day. Desmond Tutu brings tranquillity and his divine quirkiness to a nation always in a state, while Jacob Zuma, after his State of the Nation recital, repeats that whatever they said he said, he never said. Nelson Mandela celebrates transparency in his ANC Government, while Mother Theresa tries to sort out who will allowed to view the exhibition of cartoons that a great Prophet will open at Heaven's Gate. All that, of course, can only happen after the Khoisan healer banishes the ghosts of Jan van Riebeeck and other colonial pickpockets from the Theatre on the Bay auditorium.

This is simply a taste of what Uys have in store for his audiences. "But," he says, "the greatest celebration is exactly that: a warm tribute to the nightly group of people who have taken time and courage to leave their homes to the protection of burglar alarms and Rottweilers, piloted their cars through the crazy city traffic, to park their cars under the guidance of parking guards, some of whom have medical degrees from Ghana and Somalia, to attend an entertainment where they will laugh and many things that they don't want to even think about. And maybe cry a little too. The show is a tribute to the audience, without whom there would be no show."

AN AUDIENCE WITH PIETER-DIRK EISH! runs from 19 February to 14 March 2015 at 8pm from Mondays to Saturdays. Additional shows take place on 7 and 14 March at 5.30pm. Bookings can be made through Computicket.

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