Picture: Mark Freeborough
Cricket, that arcane English grammar school game that has taken root in the ex-colonies, makes fertile ground for a comedy of new South African manners. Combining his two previous successful shows, Slips and Second Slips, Nicholas Ellenbogen achieves a handsome hat-trick with the current Slips.
The title puns the fielding position behind the batsman on the offside and faux pas, the main comic vehicle for Ellenbogen’s gentle satire on “untransformed” southern suburb whites, who seldom socialise outside their circle and whose ideas about African culture are at best modest. Meet Anthony ‘Lasher’ Dawkins(Ellenbogen), a retired mathematics master at Bishops, who has two debenture seats in the members’ stand at Newlands. When Dotty, his wife of 40 years, passes away, Dawkins has his boundaries pushed and is almost stumped when her seat is occupied by an ebullient Zulu polygamist, Eric ‘Wisdom’ Tshabalala (Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi).
Ellenbogen is as dependable as ever. The comedy is thoughtful and humane, and the cast deliver the lines with infectious enthusiasm.
