Since Nik Rabinowitz was first reviewed in this paper for One Man One Goat on the Obs Café stage in 2006, he has become a much sought-after national comedian and a household name beyond Cape Town.
Rabinowitz is refreshing — a white stand-up comedian who speaks isiXhosa and is politically literate. He certainly celebrates his freedom of speech in his weekly radio slot on 702 and Cape Talk — the 100th episode will run this month — commenting on South Africa’s never-ending political carnival.
In his 2009 show, uNik, much of the humour was derived from transposed race, swapping the previously disadvantaged with the formerly advantaged and creating fantasies that reversed the status quo. He imagined white people going to live in the townships in houses with electric fences and motorised gates, a low-cost housing development introducing 10 storeys of concrete, graffiti, cars on blocks and the sound of gunfire to Upper Constantia, white sangomas doing corporate workshops and yo-yo championships as a black spectator sport.
This is his material, but what are the roots of Rabinowitz’s comedy?
Has Jewish comedy affected you?
My godfather was a comedian and he was also a Jew. He was actually more of an actor, but he was a big joke-teller and collector of jokes, many of which were Jewish jokes. I think it is about being an outsider, whether you’re Jewish or black or a woman or whatever — a gay Muslim. Jewish comedy goes back centuries, dealing with oppression and difficult circumstances.
A survival mechanism?
Perhaps it was — and in our current economic and political climate there is a lot that gets people down, so the role of comedians appears to be important right now.
Do you agree that Jewish humour is often self-deprecating?
Can you prove you’re Jewish? Yes, ask me for a loan (laughs). I think that my Jewish comedy mirrors my own discovery of my Jewishness, because I went to a Waldorf school, which was a Christian environment. Until I was 11 I didn’t know anything about being Jewish. Suddenly I was thrown into cheider [elementary school that teaches the basics of Judaism and Hebrew] for six-year-olds and I was 12 — Gulliver’s Travels for Jews. You have this Bar Mitzvah and all this Jewishness descends on you … I didn’t really know how to speak about it in my comedy.
Now in this new show [Stand and Deliver] I talk of the new wave of Judaism, which is black Jews, Afrikaans Jews and coloured Jews. I also talk about death for three minutes — funny shit happens when people die. It took me a while to work it out, how to do it in stand-up.
Why do you want to make people laugh?
Humour is a good way of bringing people together. There is something transformative about people laughing for that amount of time. It’s a healing of sorts. Cathartic.
In the way crying or laughing are almost the same?
They often look [the same]. I have a friend who I sometimes can’t tell the difference, especially on the phone.
You do a lot of political comedy. If you look at Bill Maher in the United States, Have I Got News for You on BBC TV and the News Quiz on BBC Radio, we’re not doing very well with political comedy, are we?
If you compare us with the US or the United Kingdom, yes. But [not] if you compare us with Australia. Going and performing there was interesting because I went to see a fair amount of comedy — nothing political. The Late Nite News show [with Loyiso Gola on e.tv] is trying, but it’s not as controversial as a puppet that looks like the president.
How does political comedy work for you?
The discipline of doing a weekly radio show [The Week That Wasn’t] has made me a better comic. And the more I can say stuff to which people say “they are going to put a hit out on you”, the better. The [show creates the] building blocks of my stage show … Connecting the political to the personal, I think, is interesting.
But what makes politics funny?
John Cleese talked about the tension around taboo topics, how the laugh is often in proportion to the tension. Laughter is a natural reaction.
And humour is transgressive?
Yes. It’s an amazing time to be a comic in this country — just the abundance of material. ZANews is a release for the tension we build up. We need that to be mainstream (ZANews is streamed on the internet). I watch television news but I’m always looking at it from this [show material] perspective. I want it to be as fucked up as possible. [But] the other night, afterwards I felt anxious, distressed and “oh my god where is the country going”. Laughter defuses it, makes it palatable.
What comedy do you like doing the most?
I’ve done a lot of stuff for the Jewish community. I think intimate comedy clubs are the most exciting [and] when I’m doing something I haven’t done before and I have no idea if it will work and then it kills — and it kills me too. That is exciting. With corporates you do what you know works; people aren’t going to go with you on interesting tangents.
I’ve always disliked your braai cook, Jannie Olivier, the kaalgat kok, ‘master baster’ sketch.
Yes, I remember you wrote that. I don’t do characters anymore. I did it because I saw other people doing it. The only character I really enjoyed doing was the black kugel. I find it breaks my momentum and rhythm with the stand-up.
Characters can also trap one into having to do them every time, creating an audience expectation.
(Nodding) The Jewish-Xhosa persona I have created — I can find myself trapped in it, too.
What are the tensions in this Jewish-Xhosa combo?
It was a gimmick. I always wanted to say the Jewish-speaking Xhosa guy, but people would think it was a mistake on the press release. But the interesting tension is between Jew and Muslim at the moment. But where is the comedy? I find myself in a certain position because I see how everyone feels about it — my mother-in-law who lost most of her family in the Holocaust, how she sees Israel … But I also appreciate my Muslim friends’ views, and [then] there’s the South African connection. I saw this thing on Carte Blanche with Afrikaans Jews living in Israel. The boere-Afrikaans stereotype farmer was interviewed and the racism was: “I had 195 sheep and ‘they’ steal 10 a week.” He talks to his dog in Afrikaans; it used to bark at the blacks but now the Ethiopians are Jewish and he has to re-educate the dog. “And that tractor over there is financed by the WesBank. Ha ha! Get it?”
We live among a politically conservative Jewish community. Are you prepared to go “there” with Palestine issues with your comedy?
I’m often tempted to when I get riled by stuff, but my wife is a sobering influence. What is it going to achieve if I start to rant? Am I going to shift anyone’s attitudes? It’s about finding a way to say stuff. [Israel] lends itself to our own conversation about land and in this city too. I do this piece about coloured people converting [to Judaism] to get into gated communities in Sea Point.
What does the private Nik do?
This world that I operate in is quite full-on; being in front of people a lot and having to be funny all the time. One of my favourite places in the world is in the Cederberg mountains. My dad spent about 20 years documenting rock art. As a kid I grew up camping and visiting these amazing places. There is one magical spot in particular, way off the beaten track, and I like to go there and spend a week just camping out on my own. We [comedians] are observers; we need that time.
What was your first job?
I worked as a river guide on the Breede and later the Orange. I was a handlanger (labourer). I used to carry everything on the boat — the portable toilet and a bag of shit. I’d carry people’s shit for four days on the Orange River.
Have you been booed on stage?
Once I was told to get off the stage or words to that effect: “You’re not funny!” When I started I had this black Zimbabwean character I used to do for my entire set. Then I realised I had to stop doing that and start being Nik. I stayed over at Hanover and met Mark Banks at the bar and bought his CD. That was the first stand-up comedy I’d ever listened to, and South African, and it was so funny I drove to Johannesburg all the way with it playing.
What were your first experiences in theatre?
I was a handlanger for Nicholas Ellenbogen and Theatre for Africa. We drove around Africa and I did the lights and tents and I dug a long drop [toilet] in Swaziland. Before stand-up I did corporate theatre. I did something for Coca-Cola in Nigeria. I wrote this little show, the history of Coke in 15 minutes, but after seven minutes they came to us and said: “Please can you stop. We are eating now.” On a makeshift stage next to a pool all the way to Nigeria to do that!
Catch Nik Rabinowitz’s latest show, Stand and Deliver, currently in previews and opening on December 14 at the Baxter Concert Hall. Book at Computicket