Who: Ian von Memerty
Director: Charmaine Weir-Smith
Script: Ian von Memerty, Charmaine Weir-Smith
Where: The Tesson at the Joburg Civic
Dates: Until December 31
He's a song and dance man who plays the piano. In fact, Ian von Memerty is a vaudevillian in his heart and soul. And if you're not sure exactly what that means, it's a little bit of everything you can possibly do on stage.
He proves that in spite of the title, we don't really need superheroes to turn theatre around. What we need are actors to play them like Von Memerty does - brilliantly.
He has always been a showman but sometimes he loses himself in productions backstage, and we tend to forget the performer. No more. With this one, he shows it all.
From the singer, in any style he selects, to the fine pianist we have come to know, to the graceful dancer, he combines it all in a show that's sheer entertainment.
It helps that he's a good actor, knows how to handle one-liners and can juggle any repartee from the audience with aplomb.
Von Memerty also enjoys making the audience laugh, mostly at themselves. And being proudly South African, it is our quirkiness as a nation that he explores and exploits.
In a wonderful historic race through the last 300 years (if he can do it with music like in A Handful of Keys, why not with facts), he captures the rainbow nation magnificently with great mirth and merriment. There's hardly a soul that doesn't come under the whip and most of it is marvellously funny.
The timing is spot on because a few years back it would have been too much to take from a white boykie!
He shows how far we have come and it's great to laugh at ourselves in all our diversity - and from a singular place. Twelve years on and as a nation we can look back and laugh at the monsters and mayhem and applaud what Von Memerty refers to as an imperfect miracle.
Going back in time with variety as the cornerstone, he touches not only on all the styles but also all the emotions, from the sentimental to the sweet, hearty to heartfelt, and anchors it all in volumes of laughter.
It's a great lesson to witness a performer with little more than a few costumes, an accomplished accompanist, a sharp, perceptive script and some good songs put on a show as he gets back to the heart of the matter - entertainment.