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Side-splitting stuff!
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July 29, 2009
 By Sally Scott
LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANKS!
PERFORMER: Mark Banks
WHERE: Rhumbelow Theatre, Umbilo
WHEN: Friday - Sunday (plus matinee at 2pm, Sunday)
RATING: ****
If the small bunch of reviewers at the Rhumbelow last Sunday night (including me - 'Glenwood housewife') don't give this Mark Banks gig unconditional praise, we have it on expert authority that flamingos (most of whom are fans of ABBA, you probably weren't aware?) will suffer.
Also due to suffer is well known theatre practitioner Garth Anderson.
Anderson, who lost both his legs below the knee to diabetes, needs a prosthesis.
Banks promises to share his lucre from this short season at the Rhumbelow between several hundred troubled flamingos and Anderson. There is a convoluted 'leaning problem' where both are concerned - not to mention the inconvenience of beak loss (the flamingos, not Anderson).
So, no pressure for reviewers there then.
Luckily, Banks, with 20 odd (very odd) years in the game of stand-up comedy and one of the most widely recognised and respected ... OK, he dictated this, after all he shares his birthday with Adolf Hitler and Robert Mugabe's African Grey parrot.
Let's just say if you're a fan, you know the man. Speaking with no forked tongue, I have never been to an evening with Banks and left disappointed.
At Sunday night's show we learnt that Michael Sutcliffe is, in all probability, a paid up member of the hobbit clan (have you ever seen his feet?), Sepp Blatter is less FIFA grandee and more pungent bubbles in the bath, while Ushaka's dolphins (probably forming a union as we speak) are being tortured daily by being forced to leap into the air, where they are afforded a brief glance of their natural habitat and freedom, only to plummet back into that tank. They probably make them watch Prison Break, too.
Beware croc wearers (into the closet with all of you), celebrate the latest 'Xenophobia Festival', ponder hungry Zim woodborer (those carved giraffes, as purchased by every other tourist, are 'festooned' with the little buggers) and rejoice that there are others who don't give a toss whether Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and those three sisters are all lurking in the cherry orchard.
Two hours of satirically waltzing across a field full of sacred cow landmines and other worthy topics, not to mention Durban's healthy dagga crop, Vera Lynn (the reason for WWII?) and Olive Schreiner.
Two hilarious hours - and not one hesitation.
Give the man the money...
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