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A couple of weeks ago I received a coveted invite to the nominee announcements for the 3rd Annual Comics Choice Awards at Parker’s in Monte Casino.
As a comedy lover I had the pleasure of being at Mishmash in Greenside (Tuesday night comedy is rocking there – go support!) where I met Deep Fried Man, Dusty Rich and Vittorio Leonardi. Being me, I decided to befriend these comical folk ahead of the Nominee Announcement event, and to be fair, I was laughing so hard at their performances two of the comics singled me out in the crowd, so they knew who I was before I even said hi. Sigh, you can’t take me anywhere… Much to my delight the guys all informed me they’d be at the event the next day.
On the day, I arrived at the red carpet affair where the theme of the nominations was inspired by underground street art – artists taking public structures and defacing them to make them human, which on its own is cool and reminds me of Banksy – and as the MC for the day so eloquently put, “echoing that comics reflect the social art of comedy”.
On my way in I caught up with John Vlismas, legendary SA comedian and also one of the producers and founders of the annual Comics Choice Awards and TOTALLY got my quote for the day…
While we were chatting about how exciting it is that the comedy industry and awards are really starting to boom, a super passionate John got downright heavy and replied “I’m excited. I’m getting wood right now just speaking to you…that’s inappropriate ha ha”.
John feels the growth of the industry and the awards is “a direct result of the change, there’s more of an explosion of comedy audiences, more people who are comedy literate now, and there’s a massive appreciation for comedy especially where there’s a history of hardship. You find people who have had a tough time [are] much more open to great comedy. I can’t tell you what a comedy crowd is going to look like, all I know is they think the same, they look all different [but] you’ll find SA comedy fans as a group are fucking amazing, high quality, honest, brave, forthright, gutsy. I much prefer playing to SA audience than I do to anyone else’.
This year’s Comics Choices Awards is happening in August and is bound to be a kick ass extravaganza where the winners in all 6 categories will be announced and get to go home with their sexy Waldo – the SA comedy equivalent of the Oscar. The massive variety show promises to be action packed, expensive and a real feat featuring sketches, madness, a huge stunt team and maybe even some nudity. Literally can’t wait to attend! It’s going to be epic.
During the nominee announcements there were some excellent FHM jokes flying around and Deep Fried Man even sang a little song called The White Genocide.
The only award given out on the day was the Life Time Achiever Award, which went to an incredibly humble and touchingly emotional Barry Hilton. I never thought I’d see the day when Barry was speechless and my admiration for the man increased exponentially as the award for this exceptional comic was well deserved.
Winner of the Life Time Achiever Award
The nominees were announced (below) and comedians in each category are voted for by their peers except in the final category – The Savannah Audience Choice Award.
So, the nominees for the 2013 Comic’s Choice Awards are:
The Savanna Newcomer Award
Loyiso Madinga
Eureka Nkese
Schalk Bezuidenhout
Kagiso Mokgadi
The BlackBerry Breakthrough Act Award
Deep Fried Man
Mpho Popps Modikoane
Donovan Goliath
Jason Goliath
The Comic’s Choice Comic Of The Year Award
Trevor Noah
Loyiso Gola
Tumi Morake
Riaad Moosa
The Times Comic’s Pen Award
Chester Missing
Loyiso Gola
Kagiso Lediga
Rob van Vuuren
The Savannah Audience Choice Award
Mashabela Galane – Unique code – 1197
Sifiso Nene – Unique code 1187
Thapelo TIPS Seemise – Unique code 1150
Khanyisa Bunu – Unique code 1209
Get voting for your favourite of these comics here.
The nominees are well deserved and can’t wait to see who the winners will be. So chuffed to see that Tumi Morake is in there for Comic of the Year, holding strong for the ladies.
In addition to winning a Waldo, winners of the Life Time Achiever Award and the Comic of the Year Award will also be bestowed with the biggest skull ring on the planet. The ring is custom-made, worth over R80K and more rare than a Superbowl ring. It’s also the highest honour in the SA comedy industry because “when you wear the ring, you know you’ve been voted by your peers and it’s an unrepeatable account” says Vlismas.
Under the exceptional eye of Pietro Cignioli the ring has been designed and crafted by Opheo Twins (the Godfather of custom and handmade jewellery with stores in Hyde Park Corner and Bedford Centre) and has totally captured the symbolism and meaning behind the piece. John and Pietro talked me through the design:
“The ring is made from raw gold representing talent: you can have the talent but that’s just buried underground, then you’ve gotta start the work.
The shield represents thick skin: to work in the industry you’ve gotta develop a very tough skin.
The skull is for a lifetime work to be a great comic.
The eyes of the skull are diamonds representing the crystal clear vision a comic needs to observe, to then do great comedy.
The jester hat is a crown because you’ve won an award but it’s tipped to the side as a jester hat, which means you mustn’t take that too seriously and become arrogant.”
Being in the company of comedians is always colourful and after the announcements I had the pleasure of hanging out with Dusty, Vittorio, Deep Fried Man, The BlaccJew, Phumlani Makhaye and Nina Hastie.
Daniella Pellegrini's Blog 