Category: Review

Unforgotten man of the people

Replete with clear maps and a body of photographs, this biography of Tsietsi Mashinini by Sam Mathe is inequivocally a ten out of ten historical biography that will keep you gripped from page one, but will reverberate with your understanding of the fabric of South African history for ever after.

Clickbait and roadkill

It’s a tale in which Buckland paints the landscape. Like a maker of haiku, conjoined with a watercolourist who can bring life, levity and insanity to a simple line cast across an empty stage, he performs the trees, and the road and the silly trivia that give fools fan status.

God in a paper cup

In a country plagued by alcoholism and suicide, David Ireland’s ‘The Fifth Step’ directed by Charmaine Weir-Smith at the Baxter Studio Theatre in Cape Town, brings a richly potent conversation to the forefront without drowning you in stats or sadness. It is beautifully performed by Albert Pretorius and Lyle October.

How to give the finger to tradition

Hentie van der Merwe’s recent WAM exhibition ‘After De Jongh’ was replete with a selection of second-hand prints of Tinus De Jongh’s work, placed on patchworked fabric. This evokes the broekie lace doilies and crocheted antimacassars of a tradition of ‘tzatzkes’ used to enhance the home of many a granny.