Two of the Bay’s funniest entertainers, Ian von Memerty and Gino Fabbri, are teaming up for an outrageous comedy which should have audience members rolling on the floor and rocking in the aisles.
Common & Class opens for its first-ever performance at Remo’s Italian Restaurant in the Baakens Valley on Saturday and Sunday, August 18 and 19.
Both shows were sold out within the first two days of their announcement, so an additional performance has been scheduled at Old Grey on Friday August 24.
The laugh-a-minute clash of cultures combines Fabbri’s dynamic drumming and guitar-playing with Von Memerty’s pyrotechnic piano-ism as they tackle everything from mime, drag, beat-boxing, singing, acting and joke-telling, moving from rock to “Rocky Horror”, boeremusiek to Broadway and country to classical.
Common thinks Class “has a stick up his bottom” and Class thinks working with Common is “like climbing Mount Everest naked carrying an angry yak on your back”.
The delights of country music are less than enthusiastically shared by Class as he is dragged kicking and screaming through cowboy land, while the finer expressions of classical music whistle past Common like tumbleweed through a deserted town.
The confusion of Von Memerty’s anally retentive Class being forced to work with the moronically enthusiastic Common is the backbone of a show which promises to deliver belly laughs aplenty.
The musical-comedy double act found its roots in pre-show change-room banter which grew ever more riotous each night while the two performed an Elton John tribute together at Theatre on the Bay in Cape Town at the beginning of 2018.
Through laughter and one-upmanship, they discovered a shared sense of humour.
The two also share a love of accents and playing different characters, a spontaneous interactive wit, years of stage experience, oodles of musicality and a licence to go to places they have never been before.
Common & Class will be at the East London Guild Theatre on Wednesday August 22.

Tickets for the August 24 show at Old Grey and the Guild Theatre on August 22 cost R160 each, or R140 each for eight or more, on sale at Computicket. Shows start at 7.30pm...