Choose from a variety of proponents of classic stand up comedy, comedy acts, impromptu ‘improv’ comedy shows, satire, farce, slapstick, MC in a comedic manner. Comedy Ventriloquists, Comedy Magicians and musical comedy
ABOUT Entertainment has an exciting catalogue of high calibre polished comedy acts.
Contact us with your requirements so we can make the best suggestions
BARRY HILTON ” THE COUSIN “
Barry Hilton, ‘the Cousin’, is South Africa’s premiere stand-up, international comedian, capable of performing his original brand of South African humour anywhere in the world. His 2002 Laughter to The People Tour was a hit with South African and European audiences in England, France, Wales, The Channel Islands, Holland and Ireland where he performed to sold-out audiences, following on the success of his two sold out seasons in London, 2001. Barry performed at the prestigious London comedy club, The Comedy Store as the first South African stand-up comedian to perform there.
He released two live comedy videos and three comedy compact discs, which all sold extremely well. His video Here We Go Again has sold in excess of 40,000 copies in this country to date since its release in June 2000, a local record for sales of a sell-through comedy video. Barry appeared on The Smirnoff International Comedy Festival, in Cape Town in August 1999, alongside a host of British and American comedians. He appeared as Master of Ceremonies for the Smirnoff Comedy Festival in Cape Town, 2001 with a host of International comedians.
In addition to his tour shows and corporate appearances, Barry has devised an exciting new motivational team-building concept to offer to corporate companies. Barry Hilton’s Laughter Factory shows companies how to bring more laughter into their daily business and professional life. Barry is available to present his Laughter Factory concept for any corporate company. He performs corporate shows for different companies in cities all around South Africa every month of the year. Barry’s tour shows are in addition to his corporate dates which are booked well in advance.
CONRAD KOCH – Comedy Ventriloquist and Satirist
Conrad has been reinventing the art of ventriloquism and serving it up in his unique, wacky, and madly funny way for several year. His comic and ventriloquist abilities make for one of South Africa’s most exciting corporate acts. Conrad’s act is awake, alive, intelligent and completely crazy!
An anthropologist with a Masters degree in psychology,
Conrad trained to be a comedian and ventriloquist through Cape Town’s College of Magic and on the stages of the South African comedy industry.
Some of the characters he has created for his show include a Scottish tokoloshe, a vegetarian vulture, a feminist Sandton kugel and a Cape Flats drag queen then there is everyones favourite political idiot “Chester” .
His show is geared towards a thinking adult audience and can be adapted or rewritten for the situation. The show can be anything from five to fifty minutes, depending on clients’ needs.
Conrad has worked as a professional facilitator for corporate self-help workshops. He is frequently a feature at corporate functions and is repeatedly rebooked for the Blacks Only Comedy Show, 5fm Heavyweight Comedy Jams, Night of 100 Stars, Smirnoff International Comedy Festival, Oppikoppi Music Festival and the South African Comedy Festival in London.
His corporate clients include Standard Bank, Eskom, and BP. Conrad has worked in the Canada, the UK and Australia.
CASPER DE VRIES
Casper de Vries is the most successful Afrikaans stage entertainer in South Africa. He has been performing for over 20 years. Since 1996 all of his annual tours throughout South Africa have sold out. In 1999 he played nine weeks standing room only in the 400 seater Little Theatre in Pretoria and sold out for five weeks at the 600 seater Nico Malan Theatre in Cape Town.
Casper has appeared in five feature films and a television show and has released five CD’s and three videos of his live shows. He brings out a new one-man show every year which tours from May to December
DAVID KAU
Incontinence is a theme that stands out in funny man, David Kau’s resume…”In Grade 2 during prayer, David wets himself…Grade 5…David is called to the principal’s office…he leaves a temporary river on the principal’s table (after three lashes on the backside).” Today David has learnt how to hold it in and he is the one lashing out the jokes, having performed in national and international comedy shows all over the country, David’s stress management has come a long way since Grade 5.
At school he was almost prevented from writing his final exams and was often in trouble due to outstanding fees. He celebrated the end to his cash flow problems when in 1998 he blessed himself with a new name…”Previous LEE Disadvantaged.”
A highly in demand comedian, David has performed at the Smirnoff International Comedy festival at the Baxter where he was one of the 44 comedians (11 international) performing. At the Grahamstown Arts Festival he was the first black stand-up comic one-man show, The Rainbow Nation Tour. Smirnoff International Roadshow, Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg. Opening act for International Comedians performing at Ratanga Junction, Cape Town. David Kau performed with other top South African and American comedians at Gold Reef City in the Blackout Comedy show and organises the ever popular Blacks Only Comedy shows.
EDDIE EKSTEEN
Eddie Eksteen is one of South Africa’s most well known comedians. He has been in the business since 1960 and aside from being a stand up comic at live venues, has acted in television comedies and hosted television game shows. Eddie has been in many numerous television advertisements, is a voice-over artist, acts in local movies and is a cabaret performer.
Amongst the clients he has worked for are the Sun City Dream Card Draws, the Sun City Main Hotel, Old Mutual, Clicks, Sanlam, Galaxy, Bayview Hospital (Mossel Bay), Pigs Peak Casino (Swaziland), Gold Reef City Casino, Silverlake Country Club, Tylers Realty, Dunlop and Shoprite Checkers. Eddie’s cabaret show is approximately an hour long and comprises of jokes, songs great fun and an electronic drum demonstration.
IRIT NOBLE
As a stand-up comedienne, singer, cabaret artiste, columnist and compare, Irit Noble has performed at countless high profile corporate functions, launches, product promotions and festivals countrywide. Drawing on her extensive experience of performing at venues ranging from the Sun City Super Bowl to intimate dinner parties, Irit is able to vary her performance to perfectly suit the occasion, venue and mood. Her stand-up comedy shows are hilarious and hard-hitting while her cabarets are light hearted, elegant and custom scripted to perfectly suit your event.
Irit’s sexy and dynamic corporate cabaret shows infuse old-fashioned glamour with songs like Nina Simone’s My Baby Just Cares For Me, as well as high energy contemporary material like Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time and Tom Jones’ Sex Bomb. Irit has been described as quirky, stylish, sexy, camp, risqué, ribald, unruly, irreverent, enigmatic, acerbic, subversive, witty and wicked. She has penned, produced and performed in numerous one-woman hit shows including A Barstool Named Desire, In The Bath With Muff Diva, Bump and Grind, Boyz ‘n Ivy, Giving Lip, Apoca-lips Now! and Mouth Off. Her addictive weekly column in The Independent’s Sunday Life magazine received a big following and wide acclaim.
Irit’s most recent work includes hosting SATV3’s hit series Comedy Showcase and headlining for the Cape Comedy Collective. She has maintained her status as a top corporate entertainer with prestigious cabaret performances such as Sun City’s 21st birthday party and hosting the Stone Television and Film Awards. Irit also directs and co-scripts many shows for top South African performers including Heather Mac, Glen Swart and Graham and Christine Weir (of Not the Midnight Mass fame).
JOHN VLISMAS
John Vlismas was born in Zimbabwe, after realising that his home country was about to be given to a sadistic, homophobic, megalomaniac called Rob, as a gift in the name of democracy, he fled this gross human injustice … and went to South Africa… (I don’t know either, go figure…) He then wasted another nine years doing stuff, puberty, clumsy sexual awakening, voice-breaking and religious confusion before realising that his future lay in the realms of professional idiocy.
John has become one of the youngest South African comedians to work a fully-fledged national theatre circuit. He is set to become a regular at the biggest comedy festival in the world, Just Pour Rire (Just For Laughs) held in Montreal Canada. He was featured there during his last visit in the prestigious Best of the Fest showcase show and has been guaranteed on-going future invitations.
John has produced several one-man shows which have all played to full houses and rave reviews. He hosted a popular live music and chat show on M-Net for two years, has performed at the Melbourne Comedy Festival in 26 sold out shows and opened his own comedy-club. John is the voice of Mouthpark, a regular column in Maxim magazine’s South African edition. He performed at the Heavyweight Comedy Jam for 5FM and Real Concerts, SA’s biggest touring standup production.
John is much in demand for corporate clients Mercedes Benz, MTN, Ericsson, Microsoft, Primedia and Investec Bank to name a few.
MARK BANKS
No coincidence that Mark Banks was born In Manchester in 1959, the year Valium was discovered. He arrived in South Africa at age nine and after his schooling worked as an usher, a bit-player and a stage and company manger before the vision of his future came in a flash: presenting a one-man show. His first break was at the Grahamstown Festival in 1986 where he was spotted by Dianne Wilson, after which he did a number of revues that culminated in hundreds of shows all around the country.
Mark both writes and performs his one-man shows, which he has played to packed houses nationwide. He is widely recognized as a favourite Master of Ceremonies for corporate functions, awards banquets and conferences, where he provides light relief throughout the event.
Mark is well known for his satirical fun poking at the rich and famous and for his stand-up comedy routines in front of thousands of the country’s top decision-makers. He has appeared in many guises on television, in award winning commercials and as the host of two top-rated TV programs. He was the supporting act for Tom Jones at the Sun City Super bowl. Mark is currently completing a volume of works on “Chinchilla Respiratory Tract Infections” in time for this year’s Christmas stocking.
RIAAD MOOSA
Almost all of comedian Riaad Moosa’s family members are doctors but luckily his parents are open-minded. His dad always said to him, “Riaad, you can do anything you want to in this world….as long as you become an orthopaedic surgeon first.” While a medical student, Riaad trained as a comedy magician and moved into stand-up – propless, gimmickless, trickless – for the adrenalin rush of relying on just himself, comedy. Two months after he started performing stand-up, he won the One City, Many Comics Talent Competition.
Riaad represented the Cape Comedy Collective (CCC) at the 9th International Anti-Corruption Conference in Durban in October 1999 and appeared on Evita: Live and Dangerous on eTV as a guest of Pieter-Dirk Uys. He is a headliner on the CCC’s Cape Town circuit and has appeared on stages all over the country as part of the Green’s Spicer Comedy Tour, 2000. He headlined the final show of the CCC’s run of Frolic! and was booked to play the 5FM Heavy Weight Comedy Jams in 2002. Riaad lives in Johannesburg and regularly performs at John Vlismas’s Comedy Underground, his intelligent comic observations make him a popular choice for corporate entertainment.
ROBIN BOLTMAN FOR MAGIC & COMEDY
Robin Boltman has been a professional entertainer since 1984.
He has worked on cruise liners that have taken him all over the world.
From performances at the Super Bowl, Extravaganzas and numerous Corporate and product launches, his brand of English and Afrikaans Magic and Comedy has always been well received.
From performing on cruises down the Nile, or with delegates from SFW in a Lear Jet, the exiting world of Magic has let him rub shoulders with some wonderful people.
Ernie Els’s Golf Day at Fancort, The Million-Dollar Golf at Sun City and the Thunder in Africa with Lennox Lewis are just a few
Magical memories.
In 1991 the Oceanos sank off the Wild Coast. Robin and a group of cruise staff and entertainers took over the rescue operations on board, when most of the officers and crew took to the lifeboats. Robin took over the abandoned bridge to maintain contact with the SADF, and not a single life was lost. The SA Magic Council struck a medal in his honour inscribed…”for bravery and outstanding service to magic”
In 1994 it all happened again, this time on the Achille Lauro. Four lives were lost on this day but the Robin and the entertainers played a major role during this drama. After drifting for several hours in life rafts off the Somali Coast, they were rescued by ships that had responded to the Mayday.
Despite all of this, cruising still takes up some of his time. The Island of St.Helena celebrated its 500 years, and Robin was on the RMS to entertain the guests and Islanders with Magic and Golf -which is probably funnier!
Besides the show Robin is also now performing for Companies and Schools doing a video presentation of the shipping drama. It’s an insight on the two events and Robin will take the audience through the unfolding footage, which deals with issues on “working under stress, maintaining a sense of humour and the importance of teamwork.”
SHABBA
Shonisani Aubrey Muleya, known as Shabba, gets his YFM listeners laughing every time he is on air. He has been making people laugh since he was 10 years old at school assemblies. Shabba enrolled at Technikon Northern Gauteng, for a diploma in Civil Engineering. This is where he got the name Shabba, for having the same haircut as the ragga artist, Shabba Ranks. He was part of a student delegation that approached the Independent Broadcasting Authority for a community broadcasting license for Radio Technikon Northern Transvaal and was Technical Manager of the station.
In 1999 he and his sister Elelwani Jacqueline formed Maud Productions, named after their mother. That same year he joined YFM in their Production Department and quickly moved on to Club Y, a music only show. Shabba’s tea-room and hallway jokes caught the attention of Programmes Manager Greg Maloka, who decided to put him on air. His character Ashifashabba is brought to life to celebrate the power and magic that comes with some of the South African indigenous languages. Shabbalingo ingredients are seSotho, sePedi, seTswana and Tshivenda.
Shabba entertains indigenous South Africans in the languages they best understand. “There are enough of English comedians in the country, they do not need me but my people do”, says Shabba. He recorded a comedy show at Arena nightclub in Midrand, which is available on CD.
Soli Philander
Soli is a respected, well-known and highly successful entertainer. Apart from writing his own shows, Soli also writes a regular column for the Cape Times and translates advertising copy. He has been very involved in industrial theatre and has written various scripts for corporate shows. He has performed in many corporate shows for major companies like Colgate, Castrol, Glaxo, Sachs, SAA, SAB, Eskom, Telkom, M-Net, Afrikaans Stereo, John Deere, and many more.
Soli’s involvement in charity work for disadvantaged communities, school and comunity organisation has been extensive. He has performed in Lenasia, Ennerdale, Soweto, Eldorado Park and the Cape Flats.
THEATRE
Soli has perfomed nine a members of theatre productions including The Blaxter (SA, USA & UK), The people Space, Nico Malan, Maynardville, the Glass Theatre, Alhambra, Grahams town Festival, Oudtshoorn Festival, Market Theatre, and many more. He won VITA BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR AWARD in “The Wrong Time of Year”, VITA BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR AWARD IN “Just Like Home”, and the FLEUR DE CAP BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR NOMINATION for his “Comedy of Errors”. He has done numerous Shakespeare plays and worked with PACT on a number of occasions.
TELEVISION
Soli has acted in “Dot en Kie”, “Honey town 1 & 2”, “Reflections” and “Going Up”. As a Presenter he has Hosted Front Row, Bospraatjies, Nightshift, various educational programs, Kideo (Timothy Traddle), Exploring Southern Africa. He has held comedy slots in People of the South, Night moves, Punch line, It’s a Funny Country, M-Net Red Nose Day, Catch a Wake Up and most recently, the wonderful host of M-Net’s Liriekraai.
STAND UP COMEDY
Soli has performed at the Punch line Pub, Various corporate and social functions, and the Festival Mudial in Holland.
FILM
Prins van Pretoria, Road to Mecca and Kaalgat Tussen Die Daisies.
DIRECTING
He won the 1986 YOUNG ARTIST AWARD – A Buckland in Pas de Deux for the Grahamstown festival. He has directed numerous successful plays for the Black Sun, the Market Theatre, the National Theatre of Namibia, Windybrow Arts Festival and ATKV.
RADIO
1994-1995 – “Basie” Radio Metro, 1995-1996 – “Rosie” SAEM, various voice overs for adverts, 11997 – RSG, 1998 – Punt Radio, currently Cape Talk.
PRODUCTIONS WRITTEN & PERFOMED BY SOLI
“Take Two” at the Market Theatre, Swaziland and Namibia; “A Spectacle” at the Market Theatre; “Double Take” at the Market Theatre, Namibia; “The Heppie Hawker” at the Market Theatre, Namibia, Sweden and Holland (BEST ACTOR – EVENING POST).
IN MEMORY OF BILL FLYNN
As one of South Africa’s most popular performers, Bill Flynn is a national institution and a household name. His massive CV includes leading roles in over 140 stage plays, musicals, 38 films, dozens of television shows and thousands of radio and television ads. Bill’s talent for both comedy and drama has won him 12 Best Actor awards (including the Dublin Critic’s Award) and 33 Best Actor nominations. His prolific film writing garnered him a Best Screenplay award. Bill has performed leading roles on stages all over the world including America, England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Holland and Sweden. He starred in the American box office hit Kill and Kill Again and Paul Slabolepszy’s movie and screenplay of Saturday Night at the Palace, he has won several Vita Film Awards, a Best Actor award at the Italian Taormina Film Festival and a Merit Award at the Los Angeles Film festival.
Bill was lead singer with Vinnie & The Viscounts for several years. His new band, The Rock Rebels, released their first CD Get This. Bill has made several solo and group CD’s. His solo albums include Toyi Kaka, I Don’t Like Cricket, I Love It, Gees, Gooi my a Tenor, Bokkie and recently Tenors Racket, which won a Best Comedy Album award. Bill was in constant demand as a celebrity Master of Ceremonies, Guest Speaker and Entertainer. He was seen on stage as Willy Loman in the successful Arthur Miller play, Death of a Salesman for which he won three Best Actor awards. Bill played his favourite character, Tjokkie in the smash hit comedy Running Riot. He was voted by the public as Big Brother’s favourite celebrity.
ABOUT Entertainment has an exciting catalogue of high calibre polished comedy acts.
Contact us with your requirements so we can make the best suggestions