Comedy shows cash in at Fest

We all need a laugh and an escape from reality it seems, with comedy shows at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown – which ended last week on Sunday – pulling in almost half the total ticket sales on the Fringe programme.

Magic, hypnosis and theatre with shades of black humour also fared well, as of the top 30 grossing productions on the Fringe, 19 were comedies and two were illusion acts – including Port Elizabeth illusionist Brendon Peel’s Mind Over Matter.

Festival CEO Tony Lankester announced the figures for this year’s shows yesterday, noting that comedy “almost half 49% of ticket sales” on the National Lottery Fringe.

Follow Spot production’s Bon Soir 1.5 topped the leaderboard of top grossing productions, closely followed by the same company’s Big Boys the Third and the perennial Raiders franchise from Theatre for Africa.

Three productions enjoyed sold out runs – Pay Back the Curry!, Big Boys the Third and bRENT - A Mobile Thriller.

Theatre (including musical theatre) still had a good showing, with eight productions on the Top 30 list – including Artscape’s Ityala la Mawele, the return of Jemma Kahn’s 2015 smash hit We Didn’t Come to Hell for the Croissants and Rob van Vuuren’s Silver Standard Bank Ovation award-winning Dangled.

In a statement yesterday, Lankester said the Fringe showed an “encouraging emergence of young producers creating platforms and opportunities for artists”.

ExploSIV Productions, Siv Ngesi’s production company, was the most successful producer on the Fringe with four shows featuring among the Top 30 grossing on the Fringe.

Other companies with multiple entries on the same list include Andrew Simpson (three), Follow Spot (two) and Pickledginger (two).

The top 30 best-selling shows, in alphabetical order, were:

A Man and a Dog (theatre);

Apologies in Advance;

B!*ch Stole My Doek;

BeSpoke;

Big Boys the Third;

Bon Soir 1.5;

Butlers and Broadway;

Camp Carrawak;

Chasing Shadows (dance);

Comedy Masterclass;

Dangled (theatre);

Don’t Burn Your Sausage!;

Dr Stef’s Sidesplitting Hypnosis;

Dracula (theatre);

Gym and Tonic: Subtitled Memory of a Muscle;

Hairy Potter and the Stoned Philosopher;

Hashtag Lottering;

I Came, I Taught, I Left

Ityala la Mawele (music theatre);

Life;

Mind Over Magic (illusion);

Pay Back the Curry!;

Raiders Spaced Out The Moon Rock Musical;

Salt (theatre);

Stuart Lightbody’s Sleepless Dreams (illusion);

The Best of Rob van Vuuren;

The Oxford Imps;

The Time of your Life (theatre);

We Didn’t Come to Hell for the Croissants (theatre);

Whistle STOP (theatre).