In ‘Black Coffee’, everything, from a complete colour wheel of deadliest poison, to the toby jug in the room, to the sub-plot of secret plans for a bomb, not to forget the costumes and pin curls of the era, is perfectly handled. This is a well-made play at its best.
THE COURT DRAMA in the wake of a murder of passion is arguably the most enthralling context for a thrilling story to unfold. Put it in the hands of one of South Africa’s finest directors, know that it sparkles with the words of the queen of murder mysteries […]
SOMETHING HAS TO be said about the value of sheer fresh, spoof-driven comedy which tosses industry in-jokes in the air as liberally as it does asides from movies, and in which the cast have as much fun – or more – as you do, in the audience. Throw […]
THERE’S NOTHING QUITE like being holed in an uncomfortable situation, for an indefinite period, with a colleague you barely know for an ice-breaker to manifest. This is what happens when Maureen from HR (Caroline Midgley) comes to deliver a message to her IT colleague, Barry (Gavin Werner) in […]
LET’S FACE IT: we all need a beautiful page turner, that sets us on fire and gives us something potent to come home to. This is Craig Higginson’s 2023 novel, The Ghost of Sam Webster. And yes, it’s a thriller, but there’s depth to it which is about […]
IF YOU GET a special thrill out of the character definitions and wiles of an Agatha Christie murder, you will absolutely love every trick and nuance in Anton Treurnich’s Afrikaans-language radio play this week. Stille Waters is a tale crafted out of the idiosyncrasies of small town personalities. […]
THE CULTURE OF the scary flick has a long following which was as much about the physiologically kick of a big fright as it was about being safely ensconced in the audience and not being susceptible to the grasp of an Agatha Christie baddie or the psychopath that […]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN a gorgeous stranger pops into your restaurant for a casual burger and a stated desire for more? Is he a critic? Has he an agenda? When Louis (André Weiderman) presents himself at the restaurant owned by Lilian (Roeline Daneel), you think love is in the […]
WHEN SOMETHING UNEXPECTED (and unexplained) happens to a stranger in your midst, everyone responds from within their own deep selves, and this week’s riveting Afrikaans-language play by Madelein Volschenk articulates this soundly. Cast against the backdrop of a remote B&B in contemporary South Africa, it bears the characteristics […]
EVERY ONCE IN a while a novel might cross your path that snatches at every spare minute you have and occupies your every waking hour – until you’ve found out whodunit, that is, or how the narrative comes to closure. When you read Marilyn Cohen De Villiers’s Deceive […]
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