Bridgette A Lacy THE SEASONS OF BEENTO BLACKBIRD by Akosua Busia (Hutchinson, R97,95) IMAGINE a man who is “a broad-shouldered six- foot-four silhouette headed across the tarmac like a panther on the prowl . Focused. Upright. Full of power.” Did I mention that this man spends winters with one wife on a Caribbean island and […]
The latest SA/UK gospel choir collaboration is a sign of the rebirth of interest in local choral music. GWENANSELL looks at the state of songs of praise HIT parade trends may come and go, but South Africa’s love affair with gospel seems to go on forever. Its latest expression is an incandescent vocal collaboration between […]
THEATRE: Julie Barker `THE struggle never made me famous.” These are words uttered by a gangster at the height of his career. This is Gomorrah!, a powerful new work directed by Pule Hlatshwayo, and conceived by the cast, all graduates of the Market Theatre Laboratory. Gomorrah! explores the inevitability of violence as a way of […]
Do not adjust your set. The image is changing. Maria McCloy on a fresher generation of South African television presenters REMEMBER the days when everything on TV, including shows aimed at the younger generation, was hosted by 40-year-olds with matching shirts and cheesy grins? When the music shows were presented by blonde English wannabees and […]
CINEMA: Andrew Worsdale IAN KERKHOF is South Africa’s most radical and prolific film-maker. He has been resident in Amsterdam since the mid-Eighties, when he went into exile and worked for the Dutch anti- apartheid movement and South African War Resistance until 1986. Since then he’s made over 20 films, all of which push the envelope […]
CRICKET: Pat McDermott MUCH has been said about the brittleness of the South African top order. It has assumed the proportions of a national crisis in the bars where the followers of cricket dissect the manner in which the touring Australians have shown such disdain for the best this country has to offer. It is […]
A philosophical Greg Norman returns this week to the Augusta course that broke his heart GOLF:Bill Elliott BY any of the usual standards applied to this varied life, Greg Norman should have been contemplating his arrival at Augusta in Georgia this week with all the rampant anticipation of a politician approaching his current mistress to […]
RUGBY: Mick Cleary RESPECT is not a concept which the Afrikaner has traditionally handed out with any great generosity to his fellow men. It took the profound dignity of Nelson Mandela, not to mention many years of incarceration, finally to prick the nation’s conscience into doing the decent thing. The British Lions have chosen a […]
FINE ART: Hazel Friedman WHEW. Breathing space. That’s one of the first reactions one has to Zone, the all-girl group show currently on at the Generator Art Space. Admittedly, the welcome sigh derives partly from the fact that these days almost anything represents a respite from the work of the Caucasian Testosterone Club – that […]
JAZZ ON CD: Gwen Ansell THERE’S a crop of South African jazz releases, distributed by indie Sheer Sounds, this month. Paul Hanmer’s Trains To Taung is the pick, and not just because of the super-stylish liner notes printed on Chinese funeral money. Pianist Hanmer has taken a very different approach to creating an African sound […]