Mark Banks - a thoroughly unique experience. (Review by Shika Budhoo)When it comes to stand-up comedy, every comedian has his own unique style of presentation. Some have less of a unique style. Mark Banks cannot be accused of having no style. His energy is pumped from the beginning of a show and his topics vary from a great knowledge of the state of politics in South Africa to his position in flamingo fund support i.e. those who have frozen flamingo stubs for legs… I’m thinking the same as you are ‘huh?!’
The show is running at the Suncoast Zone until this Sunday 27 September, and as tents for entertainment spaces go, this one was pretty impressive. It is located to the north of the Suncoast Casino and Entertainment Centre’s main building. Entirely covered in black from floor to ceiling inside the venue resembled a theatre space and the stage resembled a ‘rock concert’ in hues and design. On doing some research about this ‘new’ venue at Suncoast, I found out that this venue is ‘not so new’, and it is a permanent structure, and I’m sure it’s in store for many more entertainment icons and companies itching to fill the stage space.
On this particular night, the night of the preview of Bank’s run, September 23, the wind was howling and the rain was pouring and impressively the tent took a lot of strain under the expected September Durban weather. The sound was turned up a bit and hence the stand-up routines presented by Banks were sometimes too loud and, with his specific stand-up style, it was slightly uncomfortable on the ears at parts.
From the moment Banks bobbed onto the stage and started picking off people in the audience to ‘take to the slaughter’, stand-up comedian style, i.e. use them as props in his hilarious quick-thinking comebacks, the audience as well as myself knew we were in store for a thoroughly unique experience. His political references with all its strange quirks are spot-on and the facial expressions he pulls are so unexpected and over-the-top, that you find yourself unable to hold in your laughter.
Mark Banks: Laughing all the way to the Banks has nothing to do with the financial state of our country, and like he explicitly states at the end of the show ‘the show is a man on stage talking absolute sh*t about sh*t’; and true to his word he did not use the ‘F’ word at all, he even had a referee-like person he appointed in the front row to call him out if he did. The show ended with him paying a newspaper reviewer in the front row about R300 and giving her flowers … so I would say: don’t sit in the front row in a Mark Banks show, for obvious humiliating reasons - then again, a journalist like myself could earn an extra buck or two by offering myself up to the slaughter!
Mark Banks runs at the Suncoast Zone from September 24 to 27 September with shows at 19h30. Tickets R75 pp available from Suncoast. – Shika Budhoo
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