Just come to the show, it’s gonna be lekker, said Cape Town-based comedian Dalin Oliver. And if you miss his Johannesburg sortie this time around, do not make the same mistake again.
Oliver is in Johannesburg this week with his brand-new standup Stay At Home Comedian. It’s on at the Theatre On The Square until Thursday 15 September.
He said that the show is like a therapy session for him.
He said:” It’s basically where I complain about my neighbours. It’s my favourite stories of experiences and encounters with them.
“I don’t want to give away too much, but one of them constantly complains about my loud music despite their “adult tennis” sounds being louder than Notorious B.I.G. on full blast.
Sometimes they even sing along to the music I’m playing. It’s such a double standard right? Then, my other neighbour’s cat decided to make my apartment his second home where he stays rent-free.
“I don’t mind this. It’s a cool cat. I haven’t officially adopted it yet, but this is South Africa, and anything is possible. I can always find a connection via a family member who knows someone at cat home affairs who will sign off the papers to make me the official owner.”
He’s a funny guy and Oliver laces his conversation with humour. Sometimes sardonic, at other times, South African slapstick.
But, laughing is important and he believes that we are even funnier now, as a nation, than Mzansi’s people were pre-pandemic.
He said: “Humour is the number one coping mechanism in our beautiful country. It’s the only thing that’s going to get us through load shedding, petrol prices, potholes, corruption, service delivery, money under Uncle Cyril’s mattress, Steve Hofmeyr and so on.
“I honestly think our nation runs on the ‘gees’ of the Springboks and sports stars. We need to treasure them because when they do well, we forget about all the chaos that we experience on the daily. “
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Oliver draws his material from life experience. He said:
“My first show was called ‘I came, I taught, I left’.
It was about me spending 5 years at UCT, qualifying as a high school math and history teacher, teaching for a total of 5 months at the two high schools I attended and then leaving the classroom for a microphone, stage and a good punchline.
“The second was called ‘Face for radio’. I think that’s self-explanatory. I’ve been a sports presenter at Good Hope FM for 10 years now and, to this day, people keep telling me I don’t look like a sound.
“My favourite was when someone told me – “you don’t look as lekker as you sound” lol. I’m still confused. Then, it was ‘Adulting’. It was like a coming-of-age show where you realise that no one told us how to be a grown-up and that one size fitted sheet does not fit all beds.
I’m still trying to figure out what it means to be an adult but debit orders, retirement annuities, renting, paying the bond, life insurance and medical aid are some of the “big people” things that no one prepared us for.”
And now, it’s the new show. Apart from what Oliver has shared already, he didn’t want to give too much away. “Just come and see the show, awe,” he said.
