Angola may have richest woman on the continent, but South Africa has its most famous white woman – Evita Bezuidenhout. She also has a younger sister, Bambi Kellermann, who is the first person to encourage fake news about herself, knowing that the truth would be too unbelievable.

Uys has always been careful to balance his two most famous creatures: Mrs Bezuidenhout, part of the culture of her land since 1981 and true to her Afrikaner roots and ego, has no sense of humour and regards irony as an enemy; Madame Kellermann on the other hand wears her humour as an expensive aura and blandishes her irony as a successful weapon of mass distraction.

While waiting on the stage of the Fugard Studio for the arrival of her sister, Bambi shares the ups and downs of a life well-lived and loves well-shared; a boeremeisie, who started her long walk to freedom by leaving Bethlehem in the Orange Free State for Vienna in Austria. She was dazzled by the big world, hiding her fears behind her new underworld creation called Bambi. Yes, she was an uber-stripper on the Reperbahn in Hamburg during the 1960s. In other words: naked. Yes, she was hailed as one of the grand horizontals of the Northern Hemisphere during most of the last century – usually also naked except for her Chanel No 5 perfume. And yes, she will be in at the Fugard Studio this month and next, to share the naked truth of her story for the first time. As in most fairy tales, she marries a German aristocrat; as in most true horrors, he turns out to be a nightmare.

Evita Bezuidenhout’s lawyers have told Bambi’s lawyer that as reconciliation is the only solution for the future of South Africa, she and her sister must lead by example and publicly reconcile. They haven’t spoken to each other for over 30 years.

Never Too Naked is at the Fugard Studio Theatre for a three week season from 24 March to 11 April 2020 with tickets from R150 through www.thefugard.com or 0214614554.
Age restriction: 12

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Pieter-Dirk Uys’ newest show, When in doubt say darling, sold out as it opened at the Fugard Theatre in August this year, creating an unprecedented demand for tickets. The show returns to the same venue on 27 November by popular demand.

At a time when a casual greeting or embrace can be seen as racist or harassment, the advice is simple: when in doubt say ‘darling’. If you can’t remember their names, just say ‘darling’. If you get lost along the road to somewhere, simply ask for Darling. He did it, and now Pieter-Dirk Uys also lives in Darling.

In this production, Pieter-Dirk Uys sorts out 40 years of distress, disguise and disgust: from apartheid to tripartite, from amandla to Nkandla. Wigs, glasses, wagging fingers, toyi-toyis, red berets, trump cards of madness, icons and aikonas. From Bezuidenhouts, Raubenheimers and Ramaphosas to Altzheimers. Sometimes politics repeats itself, not only taking history and turning it into farce, but taking farce and turning into the fake news which is now called entertainment.

Join Pieter-Dirk Uys and many darlings on an exciting walk to the edge of the next cliff, when the end of the world seems nigh. It used to be called a sunset. Here’s a secret: the sun will also rise tomorrow, darling.

When in doubt say darling

27 November 2018 to 15 December 2018

Fugard Studio Theatre

Tuesday to Friday at 8pm and Saturday at 4pm and 8pm.

Tickets cost from R150 to R170 and booking is through the Fugard Theatre box office on 0214614554 or directly through the Fugard Theatre website on www.thefugard.com

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Pieter-Dirk Uys’ newest show, When in doubt say darling, sold out as it opened at the Fugard Theatre on 8 August, creating an unprecedented demand for tickets. With a growing waiting list for the current season that ends on Saturday 25 August 2018, the Fugard Theatre has now opened bookings for a return season in November 2018.

At a time when a casual greeting or embrace can be seen as racist or harassment, the advice is simple: when in doubt say ‘darling’. If you can’t remember their names, just say ‘darling’. If you get lost along the road to somewhere, simply ask for Darling. He did it, and now Pieter-Dirk Uys also lives in Darling.

In this production, Pieter-Dirk Uys sorts out 40 years of distress, disguise and disgust: from apartheid to tripartite, from amandla to Nkandla. Wigs, glasses, wagging fingers, toyi-toyis, red berets, trump cards of madness, icons and aikonas. From Bezuidenhouts, Raubenheimers and Ramaphosas to Altzheimers. Sometimes politics repeats itself, not only taking history and turning it into farce, but taking farce and turning into the fake news which is now called entertainment.

Join Pieter-Dirk Uys and many darlings on an exciting walk to the edge of the next cliff, when the end of the world seems nigh. It used to be called a sunset. Here’s a secret: the sun will also rise tomorrow, darling.

When in doubt say darling runs from 27 November 2018 to 15 December 2018 at the Fugard Studio Theatre with performances Tuesday to Friday at 8pm and Saturday at 4pm and 8pm. Booking is through the Fugard Theatre box office on 0214614554 or directly through the Fugard Theatre website on www.thefugard.com.

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After a sold-out season at Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Studio, the newest Pieter-Dirk Uys show will be presented at the Fugard Theatre in August 2018.

Sometimes politics repeats itself, not only taking history and turning it into farce, but taking farce and turning into the fake news which is now called entertainment. Pieter-Dirk Uys is sorting out 40 years of distress, disguise and disgust: from apartheid to tripartite, from amandla to Nkandla. Wigs, glasses, wagging fingers, toyi-toyis, red berets, trump cards of madness, icons and aikonas.  From Bezuidenhouts, Raubenheimers and Ramaphosas to Altzheimers.

At a time when a casual greeting or embrace can be seen as racist or harassment, the advice is simple: when in doubt say darling. If you can’t remember their names, just say darling. If you get lost along the road to somewhere, simply ask for Darling. He did it, and now Pieter-Dirk Uys also lives in Darling.

Join him and many darlings in this minefield of hashtags and hatespeech, on an exciting walk to the edge of the next cliff, when the end of the world seems nigh. It used to be called a sunset but here’s a secret: the sun will also rise tomorrow, darling.

When in doubt say darling runs 7 to 25 August 2018 at the Fugard Studio Theatre with performances Tuesday to Friday at 8pm and Saturday at 4pm and 8pm. Booking is through 0214614554 and www.thefugard.com.

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Here we have a fun-filled entertainment show with Pieter-Dirk Uys and other darlings.

Sometimes politics repeats itself, not only taking history and turning it into farce, but taking farce and turning into the fake news which is now called entertainment.

Pieter-Dirk Uys is sorting out 40 years of distress, disguise and disgust: from apartheid to tripartite, from Amandla to Nkandla. Wigs, glasses, wagging fingers, toyi-toyis, red berets, trump cards of madness, icons and aikonas.

From Bezuidenhouts, Raubenheimers and Ramaphosas to Altzheimers.

At a time when a casual greeting or embrace can be seen as racist or harassment, the advice is simple: When in doubt say darling.

If you can’t remember their names, just say darling.  If you get lost along the road to somewhere, simply ask for Darling.  He did it, and now Pieter-Dirk Uys also lives in Darling.

Join him and many darlings on an exciting walk to the edge of the next cliff when the end of the world seems nigh. It used to be called a sunset. Here’s a secret: the sun will also rise tomorrow, darling.

When in Doubt, Say Darling

Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Studio

4 – 22 April

Tickets at Computicket

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by Jaco du Plessis

If there is something we South African’s know how to do, it is to laugh at ourselves. We always see the funny side of this rainbow nation of ours, and one man has been a leading force behind some of the best, yet sometimes controversial laughs. Pieter-Dirk Uys stands like a tall monument when it comes to South African comedy, enjoying a career that spans more than half a century. In his latest show, Echoes of a Noise, Pieter lets us into his world and where it all started for the beloved 71 year old satirist, author and social activist.

The theatre is abuzz with excitement as the lights dim and a single spotlight illuminates the lone stool on the stage. There is no doubt where our attention would be focused for the next 90 minutes and Uys doesn’t disappoint. No one could look away as he grabbed you by the hand and opened the top drawer of his father’s writing desk – “in case something terrible happens, grab the drawer and run to the neighbours”.

Uys introduces us to the people who helped mould him into the man he is today, there is Pa, Hannes Uys, his German born mother Helga Bassel, his childhood nanny and his sweatheart crush, the beautiful Sophia Loren. Uys reveal aspects about his life in the theatre, what you can and couldn’t do in the Apartheid South Africa, and his love, or lack thereof, for the Censor Board.

The stories wrap around you like the warmth of a fireplace in winter. Suddenly, I’m not in the theatre anymore, Uys manages to take you into his childhood sitting room in Pinelands, Cape Town . This stirs up my own personal memories of Sunday afternoons at my grandparents’ house listening to all the stories from their lives. The memories make us laugh as we relive some of his best inspirational moments, and then something happened that I never thought would… Uys jerks at my heart strings as he recalls a personal tragedy and tears start to well in my eyes. This is the power of Pieter-Dirk Uys, he breaks down barriers with his gift, whether it be racial, political or emotional.

This show is a great memoir to the life that has brought so many memories, so many ground breaking shows, and has given us one of the most iconic woman in South Africa, Tannie Evita Bezuidenhout. I kept on wondering when she would make an appearance, what is a Pieter-Dirk Uys show without her? And then like only he can Pieter-Dirk makes his biggest echo of a noise, the lady we have come to love and adore, and with the brightest shade of red on the lips, we come full circle.

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After sell out seasons in Cape Town in 2016, Pieter-Dirk Uys brings his acclaimed one-man memoir The Echo of a Noise to Johannesburg!

Having performed alone on the stages of the world for well over seven thousand times, Pieter-Dirk Uys has learnt that every show is the first and the last performance – because each audience demands and gets a different energy, topicality and excitement. Now in his 72nd year, he doesn’t glance back at the successes and failures that have strengthened his belief in a constant improvement of his work, but at those small signposts that throughout his life subconsciously have pointed him in a right and original direction – his father Hannes Uys, his mother Helga Bassel, his grandmothers, his teachers, his passions; Sophia Loren, censorship, false eyelashes and making a noise when everyone demanded silence.

South Africa’s foremost satirist sits on a barstool, wearing his black beanie on his head and his Almost Famous sweatshirt, and with his impish smile, he even looks like a naughty goblin trapped by the spotlight. Within minutes he fills the auditorium with his presence. This is just Pieter-Dirk Uys speaking and he opens his heart and talks about his private and public life. The big hair and silky repartee of Evita Bezuidenhout or the smoky drone of the sexy Bambi Kellermann have been stored elsewhere for some other time. It soon becomes clear that the title of his autobiographical one-man memoir, The Echo of a Noise, doesn’t really do justice to what he presents here. He leads you into his inner sanctuary, takes you through our history and shows where what is public and private meet

Uys was and still is a voice in the wilderness, ever since he first appeared fearlessly on a stage in the 1970s. He jokes that the all-powerful censor board was his own personal public relations department. And how brilliantly they banned his work: even to the extent of declaring a word Uys invented as obscene, a word that they couldn’t find in any dictionary. We hear the recording of the voice of little Pietertjie Uys singing like an angel and accompanied on the piano by his father, Hannes Uys, whom he would accompany on Sundays to the church where Hannes was organist – the father whom he loved, but didn’t like very much; the sternest critic of his work and yet the one who could also give good advice. He tells of his father’s last moments, being with him as he died and then going back to the family home where Sannie, the housekeeper and his ‘Cape Flats mother’, asked if there wasn’t any washing from ‘Pa’. The audience is spellbound as he shares the suicide of his German mother, Helga, as well as the influences on him of his Afrikaans and German grandmothers.

It’s as if Uys constantly takes his audience into his confidence and so breaks all the rules and crosses boundaries. He remains a master storyteller who can make as much fun of himself as he does with the others who get a lashing from his sharp tongue.

The Echo of a Noise

Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Theatre

FROM 22 March to 9 April

Performances: Wed – Fri @ 8pm, Sat @ 4pm & 8pm, Sun @ 3pm

Tickets: R165 & R130

From Theatre Box Office (011) 511 1818 or COMPUTICKET.COM

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Uys puts the eish! back into entertainment with pick-a-box bonanza

As he prepares to turn 70 in sensational style this September, satirist extraordinaire Pieter-Dirk Uys is placing the power squarely in Johannesburg audiences’ hands. Now, if only the politicians he lampoons so mercilessly would follow suit…

Uys’s smash hit show An Audience with Pieter-Dirk Eish! returns by massive public demand to invade the main stage of Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Theatre in Fourways from 8 September to 4 October 2015, celebrating more than three decades of theatrical mirth, mayhem, moegoes and make-up.

But this show has a special twist. Over the years Uys has created more than 80 different characters, from politicians to kugels, icons to aikonas, and will draw from this rogues’ gallery in laying out 15 numbered mystery boxes on stage, each containing a different character from his vast satirical cluster.

The audience will choose which boxes to open, and thereby which characters this veteran entertainer and social commentator will slip into – each providing a telling glimpse of who we are, where we come from and where we are going as a nation. No two shows will ever be alike, making for an anything-goes lucky dip of laugh-out-loud observational humour.

Using humour as his trusty weapon of mass distraction, Uys will morph from a Botha into a Bezuidenhout, from a Zuma via a Zille into a Merkel. From the beloved Tannie Evita to her debauched sister Bambi, from Nowell Fine to Mama Winnie and Grace Mugabe, from the Arch to Mother Theresa – they’re all there, waiting to be unpacked, unpicked and paraded on the red carpet.

The news of the day will be cannily reflected in this cracked mirror of a rainbow nation smiling at the familiar, shocked by the obvious and, above all, laughing at itself.

Uys will be turning 70 on 28 September 2015 – in the middle of the Johannesburg return season of An Audience with Pieter-Dirk Eish! Yet, with some 35 one-man shows and in the region of 7 000 stage appearances under his belt, not to mention several plays, books, films and local and international awards, he has no desire to slow down.

He says: “If 70 feels this good, I’m looking forward to the next 10-plus years on the stages and screens of South Africa!”

Performances of An Audience with Pieter-Dirk Eish!

Tuesdays to Fridays at 20h00, with shows at 17h00 and 20h00 on Saturdays, and on Sundays at 15h00.

Tickets range between R100 and R170 in price, for an opportunity to see this national treasure in action and to laugh at – and away – your troubles.

The show is rated PG (parental guidance advised). Book through Computicket or call the Montecasino Theatre at (011) 511-1988.

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Since his first one-man show ADAPT OR DYE, he has auditioned, exploited and enjoyed over 80 different characters reflecting a life in South Africa that spans various lifetimes since the mid 1600’s. Politicians, presidents, legends, icons and aikonas have made up his satirical cluster of voices that reflect a vast spectrum of opinions, from left to right, from right to wrong, from male, female to convertible, from black to white via Barack-Obama-beige.

Pieter-Dirk Uys will exclusively present a selection of sketches, stories, characters and opinions at Montecasino that will give the audience the choices. Fifteen boxes on stage, each numbered and holding a special look at who we are, where we come from and where we are going. Using humour as his weapon of mass distraction, Uys with go from a Botha to a Bezuidenhout, from a Zuma via a Zille to a Merkel. Evita and her sister Bambi; Nowell Fine and Mama Winnie; Arch Tutu and Mother Theresa are there. The news of the day will be reflected in this cracked mirror of a rainbow nation smiling at the familiar, shocked by the obvious and laughing at itself.

The recent season of this Uyscapade in London at the Soho Theatre had enthusiastic responses:

From THE TIMES (****): “Uys is like Shakespearean jester, conveying cutting truths through wit. Intelligent, visceral, theatrical and fun. Let’s hope the satirists of tomorrow are watching.” Alex Hardy

From THE EVENING STANDARD (***): “At 68 the South African could play King Lear, but instead he has conjured up a striking character-based showcase with a twist. The mood shuttled from chilling to farce with topical gags offering added relevance. Uys remains a terrific mimic.” Bruce Dessau

From THINK AFRICA PRESS: “When Pieter-Dirk Uys gets on stage no one and nothing is safe … Uys unites the country not by rewriting its dark history but by inspecting it closely, taking stock, laughing about its absurdity, and moving on to champion the issues of tomorrow.”  Helen Reid

Venue: Pieter Toerien Main Theatre 
Dates: 18 March – 12 April 2015 
Ticket prices: R100, R130, R170 
Performances: Tue – Fri @ 8pm, Sat @ 5pm & 8pm, Sun @ 3pm

Bookings through the theatre or Computicket

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Bambi Kellermann is Evita Bezuidenhout’s younger sister. She is the chalk to Tannie’s cheese. Stripper, sex worker and grande horizontal who graduated from the University of Sex Cum Laude – and Fleur de Cap Winner 2010 for Best Cabaret, Bambi is in Johannesburg for the first time in ten years in the Gauteng world premiere of “FIFTY SHADES OF BAMBI”, her new fabulous onslaught against the prudish, the improper and the pathetic.

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