Penalty Shootout is the third and latest edition of Mike van Graan’s popular, award-winning Bafana Republic one-person, political, comedy revue brand. This time it is young Lungi Pinda who performs under the direction of Mandla Mbothwe.
Projections of Zapiro’s cartoons set the scene for each skit, opening with an estate agent kugel trying to sell Greenpoint stadium after the FIFA World Cup. Others include Madonna hosting celebrity adoptions; a man faking disability giving his take on the political situation; an evangelical preacher soliciting funds from us in order to pay for the soccer event which will bring the new dawn; an over-long spy scandal skit that (somewhat tediously) strings together James Bond film titles; a song “blame apartheid”; a rich, racist white woman with a racist dog struggling to come to grips with transformation at her children’s school; and the top 10 hits as reflecting various public figures. The most satirical sketch targets the African renaissance with a lecture in Dictator 101, and the cleverest is a spoof on South African politics by parodying the most famous lines penned by Shakespeare.
As a performer Pinda is limited to variations on two voices, and his female characters come across more as television stereotypes of over the top gay queens than women. The first Bafana Republic with Lindiwe Matshikiza remains the best performed. The current show is less reactionary and shrill and therefore somewhat funnier than the second instalment.
The problem I have with the Bafana series is that the structure of each skit has become lax. The satirical voice is too muted, because what we get is not quite satire, but almost a string of political jokes imposed on several fuzzily defined South African voices. A better performance would help somewhat.
