For the past 29
years, South African theatre luminary Nicholas Ellenbogen has been churning out
his Raiders series of comedy spoofs. A new one practically every year, which
he then launches at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown - where they have
developed a massive cult following.
This year’s edition
is called Raiders of The Caribbean, and
it was included on the bill of the Hilton Arts Festival in the KZN Midlands
this year.
It is a hilarious,
swashbuckling quirky rollercoaster of fun. The physical jokes, puns, comedy
songs and slapstick come thick and fast, and without let up. It genuinely makes
you laugh until you ache. The humour in many ways is reminiscent to the
legendary BBC radio programme, The Goon Show
which was created by the late Spike Milligan.
The action is set
in the 16th century and includes pirates, sailing ships, sword
fights, dozens of ingenious props which turn from one thing into another, burning
schooners, explosions and all sorts of other shenanigans.
The irrepressible Ellenbogen
plays a very elderly father whose lovely teenage daughter, Kitty (Jessica
Sole), has run off to sea with Harry – an audience member is selected to play the
role of Harry. The elderly father employs Kariba (Balindile Ngcobo) to find and
rescue her. The resulting action is crazy, chaotic and hilarious to say the
least.
Jessica Sole plays
all the female roles in the production with considerable panache. She is a fine
comedy actress and seems to have a lot of fun on stage.
The music for the
show was created by Jonno Tait who also accompanies all the singing very
competently on an acoustic guitar. He also played some of the bit roles. He is
the perfect pirate with a big bushy beard.
There is much
audience participation during the course of the show with several members being
selected to play characters. All of them entered into the spirit of the
occasion and seemed to enjoy taking part.
The only slight
problem was with the sound system. Pirates shout a lot don’t they – "Arrrr!" -
and as a result the system was often on the verge of distortion. This, however,
is no fault of the wonderful production but rather a shortcoming of the sound
system in use, or maybe operation thereof.
Raiders of The Caribbean is pure, unadulterated comedy entertainment.
It has no pretences to deeper or hidden messages. It is a huge cliché to say that
something is suitable for all children under the age of 95, but in this case,
it couldn’t be more true.
If ever you get the
opportunity to see this, or any other of the Raiders series, don’t miss it. But
don’t say I didn’t warn you, you will ache and maybe even cry from laughing. –
Keith Millar
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