Category: Theatre

No free lunches in this one horse town

GOOGLE THE NORTHERN Cape town of Blikfontein. “There’s nothing there!” you may shriek, as you try to zoom in closer and closer, discovering a couple of shrubs and a lot of hot air. Indeed. Blikfontein is the focus of this week’s Afrikaans-language radio drama, which broadcasts on Radio […]

The fine art of filching sheep

YOU’VE HEARD OF the Leprechaun, the Tokoloshe, Pinky-Pinky, Kalula the rabbit and others – fictional characters that represent the trickster values in a given culture. They’re made up yet believable, feisty and quirky, naughty and a touch sinister, but they evade the structures of society and crop up […]

Whatever happened to poor Wellington?

HE’S FIFTEEN YEARS old and higher maths is a doddle for him. Toilet protocol and social behaviour, not so much. Meet Christopher Boone (Kai Brummer), who has Asperger’s Syndrome. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is an astute and carefully focused, hyper-detailed but extremely watchable […]

It is never only lipstick

THE WELSH VILLAGE of Aberfan in October of 1966 weathered a catastrophe worse than anyone could have imagined. At 09:15 in the morning of an otherwise ordinary but wet day, a colliery spoil tip slid down the mountain and drowned a primary school in a 12m-deep avalanche of […]

Free as a caged love bird

AN ELDERLY WOMAN is found dead in her aviary and the police are summoned to investigate. Thus begins to unfurl a mystery that will keep you leaning in to your wireless until the very end. William Oosthuizen’s gently creepy Afrikaans-language radio play with a strong moral core, Die […]