YOU MAY BE a little out of sorts if you buy your tickets for Marianne Thamm’s Round of Applause at Montecasino, anticipating a laugh-a-second one woman show. More of a lecture into the value of our unique Constitution and the craziness of South African society, which is more apt to be friendly than antagonistic, the piece is entertaining and autobiographical. Mooting itself ‘performance journalism’, it is onstage until 24 November 2024.
Thamm is a name to newspaper readers that needs no formal introduction. An investigative journalist of note, and the associate editor of The Daily Maverick, she is a skilled writer who has over the years given clarity to many of the mysteries that have boiled poisonously and sometimes ignominiously under the surface of South African politics. Hers were the words that tore into Julius Malema’s dustbin a few years ago, revealing his slips betwixt cup and lip, proverbially speaking, amongst other things.
In this talk, Thamm riffs on about the exposure of the Guptas, the trope of White Monopoly Capital and the all-seeing eyes of DA leader, Helen Zille, even when they are sleeping. Above all, this is a Ra-Ra South African Constitution talk that offers a beautiful gloss on the value of good ethical journalism. She talks a million miles a second in describing the context and contradictions, the dark humour and insane outcomes of everything from Covid legislation to the real value of a billion Rand and important and oft anonymous whistle blowers, who in their brave singularity have helped shaped the face of this country. To say nothing of saved it.
This is a show that comes with a reading list. The pile of books standing alongside Thamm onstage is more than just a prop. It’s a recommended list that she draws on and rifles through as she talks. Sadly, these titles are not offered in the theatre foyer nor bibliographised in the programme, so you’re left ill at ease with references that cannot be chased.
One cannot help but think, however, of the kind of audiences that may drift over through the portals of Montecasino toward the theatre, holding onto their wineglasses. While these are the largely educated middle class with disposal income, and they are experienced in being entertained in the theatre, they’re not the kind of baby journalists for whom Thamm’s words would be the necessary nurturing nectar. Hopefully this show will bleed and grow, not into other theatre establishments, but onto the podia of journalism schools, setting the mark of what true journalistic writing really is. Words that can change the world.
- Round of Applause is written and performed by Marianne Thamm and is onstage at the Studio Theatre, Montecasino in Fourways until 24 November 2024.