KNYSNA ENTERTAINMENT NEWS - If you have not yet seen Mark Banks doing his latest stand-up show at the Knysna Theatre, that’s not funny. It’s only funny if you actually attend the performance. Oh all right, not really funny, but rather side-splittingly, knee-slappingly, Barry-Hilton-Kiss-My-Heinie-ish hilarious.
For Banks is the real deal, the original exponent of unforced local repartee, the principal maestro of mirth-making in the South African stand-up melee.
As he proved routinely again on the opening of show at the Knysna Theatre on Thursday night.
In the tradition of Monty Python’s Flying Circus not being in any form or fashion related to a python, the act of flying or a circus, Mark Banks on Ice bears no connection whatsoever to ice. It connects most gleefully to almost everything else however, as Banks explores the total gamut of global foibles from the vagaries of SA politics to self-exploratory road-rage to battles with fitted bed sheets.
Yes, the obligatory audience-interactive ploys are present (one could practically see his one-way ‘’conversations’’ with Nordic and French audience-members being nearly understood by them), but Banks still relies mainly on a finely honed balance between keen observational wit and measured histrionics that refuses to stop maturing. The improv-pieces are still razor sharp and the general tone damn near pitch-perfect.
If you take silliness as seriously as every well-centred soul should, there is no other recourse but to hurry forth to the theatre at 20:00 this week tonight or Saturday for your most gratifying endorphin-rush of the day.
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