National Arts Festival Archives

Theatre Review: Jigsaw – Puzzled Pals, Or A Bond Bolstered

By BRUCE DENNILL Jigsaw / Directed by Sylvaine Strike / Virtual National Arts Festival Moving a whole arts festival online has meant embracing digital means of presenting theatre; attempting to balance the performer-to-performer and cast-to-audience intimacy of theatre with...

Theatre Review: Zoom Room – Linked Under Lockdown, Or Gasping For Collaboration

By BRUCE DENNILL Zoom Room / Directed by Shelley Lothian / vFringe, Virtual National Arts Festival Independent theatre production company VR Theatrical put out a call shortly after lockdown started for new scripts that could be filmed as short...

Comedy Review: The Very Big Comedy Show – Mirth And Misfortune, Or When Hilarity Hurts

By BRUCE DENNILL The Very Big Comedy Show / Hosted by Rob Van Vuuren / Virtual National Arts Festival / PG13 A comedy show featuring several high-profile comics generally covers the same sort of ground – an MC linking...

Theatre Review: Unfathomable – Immersed With The Ancestors, Or Wait And Sea

By TAMMY BALLANTYNE Unfathomable / Directed by Athena Mazarakis / Virtual National Arts Festival I recall seeing the live version of Unfathomable (winner of a Standard Bank Silver Ovation Award on the 2019 National Arts Festival Fringe) at the...

Film Review: Steve Smith – Tampering With TV, Or It’s Almost Cricket, Mate

By BRUCE DENNILL Steve Smith / Directed by Jemma Kahn / Virtual National Arts Festival This is an odd little film, which is part of its appeal. Jemma Kahn has made a fascinating, brilliant career out of finding the...

Dance Review: Pest Control – En Garde And On Guard, Or No Sitting On The Fence

By TAMMY BALLANTYNE Pest Control / Conceptualised, choreographed, performed and directed by Mamela Nyamza / Visual National Arts Festival Pest Control is Mamela Nyamza’s angry ode to injustice. Her rage is searing, biting as she pours all of herself...

Theatre Review: BreaThing Space – Olive With A Twist, Or A Story Told Letter By Letter

By BRUCE DENNILL BreaThing Space / Directed by Alan Farber (film) and Michelle Douglas (theatre) / Virtual National Arts Festival Written as a play, BreaThing Space cleverly combines aspects of theatrical intimacy and delivery with the wider scope and...

Film Review: Lockdown Went Wrong – Short And Sharp, Or Phoning It In

By BRUCE DENNILL Lockdown Went Wrong / Directed by Lazarus Thema / Virtual National Arts Festival / PG13 Lockdown Went Wrong is a film that lasts just a minute. That sort of brevity prompts the sort of questions that...

Theatre Review: Nixon In Agony – Presidential Protestations, Or Slumping In Stereo

By BRUCE DENNILL Nixon In Agony / Created, written and directed by Adam Donen / Virtual National Arts Festival Nixon In Agony is an audio drama. Audiences are now used to podcasts and audio books – perhaps radio plays –...

Music Review: Deep Spacer – 433 Eros, Or Circumvention Of Convention

By BRUCE DENNILL Deep Spacer: 433 Eros Album Launch / Compositions by Jonathan Crossley, Cesare Cassarino and Etienne Oosthuysen / Virtual National Arts Festival Deep Spacer are an experimental musical trio – Jonathan Crossley, Cesare Cassarino and Etienne Oosthuysen...

Artist Interview: Pitika Ntuli – Return To The Source, Or Inspired To The Marrow

By BRUCE DENNILL Pitika Ntuli’s exhibition Azibuyele Emasisweni (Return to the Source), which includes 45 bone sculptures (each with their own praise song) forms part of the virtual National Arts Festival from 25 June. Ntuli’s chosen material, animal bones, and approach...

Theatre Interview: Michelle Douglas – BreaThing Space, Or A Schreiner To Storytelling

By BRUCE DENNILL Michelle Douglas’ BreaThing Space, starring Douglas, Natasha Sutherland and Lauren Urmson with Alan Farber directing, takes a deeper look at circumstances and beliefs that shaped the ‘freethinking’ views of Olive Schreiner and how she placed enormous importance...

Theatre Review: The Devil & Billy Markham

By BRUCE DENNILL The Devil & Billy Markham / Directed by Jenine Collocott / POPArt, Maboneng, Johannesburg Being privy to the development process of a new production (even if unofficially so) is a revealing, exciting and sometimes amusing…

Music: Singer. Songwriter. Sublime.

By BRUCE DENNILL Andra Cilliers made her National Arts Festival debut at St Aidan’s, a magnificent de-commissioned (you could tell because there was a bar set up in the corner) church set up as a music venue for the…

Tag: National Arts Festival