Carnival City Casino Sports Bar
Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Parker’s Comedy Express at the Supersport Showbar
Show Time: 21:00
Ticket Price: R50
Carnival City Casino, Cnr Century & Elsburg, Brakpan, JHB
011 898 7000 or
www.parkerleisure.co.za
It’s Brakpan… what more should we say. You get to see some of South Africa’s most interesting audience members.
DETAILED REVIEW:
Carnival City, Casino Sports Bar.
Amongst Joburg comics this gig is generally known to be challenging. It is a largish, high ceiling room, with mid to bright lights on in the auditorium at all times. The crowd is loosely spaced around large round tables and tucked away in booths at the back. The comedy follows a dire cabaret/dance show and the crowd are usually a little fired up by the half naked ladies and muscular men they have been watching leap frog over each other for the past 45 minutes when the comedy finally gets underway.
The crowd itself is a mix between Brakpan faithful out on a Brandy and Coke booze up and the occasional table of middle-class businessmen who last had a laugh at Biltong and Potroast and haven’t seen anything funny at all since then.
For the comedian prepared to step into racist and sexist material it is a godsend of a crowd, and imitations of Indian accents go down very well.
For everyone else it is a tough evening wherein the usual reaction is to get big laughs one minute, then stony uncomprehending silence the next.
Set ups can sometimes receive more laughter than punchlines. It is, in short the one evening on the Johannesburg calendar which will teach a comedian perseverance, and give you a thick skin. On the positive side if you do get a crowd who are in the mood for laughs and you storm the place it is one of the greatest feelings in the world, assuming you didn’t stoop to telling Eddie Eksteen jokes from the 80’s like some of the hardened MCs do. If you get a chance though, chat to Hendie the sound lady after the gig. She is a comedy expert and her advice is always good. She is the one person in the room you know, laughed at your set because she understood it.