A new comedy quiz show in Cape Town will make you laugh and think
Picture this: Curtains open, spotlight on celebrated and kak funny comedian Yaaseen Barnes welcoming you to a comedy game show where knowing the difference between a braai and a bribe might win you points.
Seriously? Yes, there is such a show on 26 September in Cape Town. Called Are You Smarter Than a Politician?, it is a panel show, with four contestants in a head-to-head competition across categories from history and geography, arts and culture to the drama and blunders of politics, all made in South Africa.
It is the brainchild of Youth Capital, a campaign to reduce youth unemployment, and Evil Comedy, one of Cape Town’s premier platforms for comedy.
It’s based on shows such as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?, but with jokes.
Last week, the game (pun intended) folks at Youth Capital, Evil Comedy’s founder Alice Viskat and Barnes kindly set up a taster of the show for me via Zoom.
They even developed questions especially for our show — I was “Team Mail” and Youth Capital’s Siba Nobandla and Clotilde Mima Angelucci “Team Guardian”. Viskat, the show’s creative director, sat in and laughed along.
Barnes: “Our former health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, famously prescribed which foods as a natural cure for Aids?
“Is it A: garlic and lemon, B: rooibos tea in honey, or C: salt and vinegar chips?”
Me: “Beep, it is A!”
Barnes: “Your answer is correct. Charles, how would you take garlic and lemon? Just put it in tea or would you have it in your food?”
Me: “In food. Lots of it. In my household there’s a lot of garlic and lemon.”
Barnes: “No vampires in that house!”
Next question.
Barnes: “What is the main type of public transport that people use in South Africa?
“Is it A: buses, B: trains or C: taxis?”
Me: “Beep! It is C — taxis.”
Barnes: “That’s right. As people of South Africa, we move through time and space because that’s why we travel in Quantums.
“Let’s go on to the next one. In the South African series Generations, which famous actor made a cameo?
“Was it A: Denzel Washington, B: Samuel L Jackson or C: Morgan Freeman?”
Me: “This is a bit of a guess because he was God — so is it C?”
Barnes: “C is incorrect. He’s all-knowing and all-hearing, but he was not in Generations.
Angelucci: “Is it A?”
Barnes: “No, Denzel Washington was not in Generations.”
Viskat jumps in: “You know, it’s actually so bizarre about that episode: Samuel L Jackson cameos for about 10 seconds and there’s a woman, I don’t know the character and she’s busy drinking at the bar.
“And he just turns around and looks over his shoulder and he’s like, ‘You should not seek refuge in the liquor’ and then just walks away.
“It’s just like a one-liner, it’s a full-on American accent, he gives her advice and then just leaves.”
Laughter all around.
The rest of the show was as much fun, with questions about Ouma rusks, Sewende Laan, and also a serious one about forced removals.
“As a nation well-known for using comedy as a balm to navigate through challenging times, the show taps into that tradition, using humour to surface important issues,” Viskat says at the end. “It also encourages people to engage with the history and realities of our country.”
They hope that this is just the first of many such shows — maybe even on TV, Viskat says hopefully.
I greet them with a question about Cape Town’s weather because they are all dressed warmly.
“It’s called ‘in character’,” Barnes quips. “There is sun today, but it’s like one of our politicians: it has the position but it’s not doing the job.”
The show is on 26 September at the Homecoming Centre in Cape Town.