For the second year in a row, a festival celebrating all that makes us laugh returns to Johannesburg and we’re excited!
The Johannesburg International Comedy Festival (JICF) was inaugurated last year when organisers hosted a four-day comedy festival at various stunning venues throughout the city, and now the fiercely funny line-up is back.
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The show is organised, once again, by Takunda Bimha’s Bimha Productions – and as a veteran in the comedy industry, he knows what he’s doing. “I have been dreaming about building a world-class international comedy festival in Joburg for some time now,” he said to City Buzz before the launch of the festival last year, and with the second festival on its way his dream is now a reality.
This year some of the exciting venues that will host the 40 comedians, who form part of the show, are the Alexander Theatre, Joburg Theatre, Constitution Hill and The Orbit jazz café.
The show will bring together a number of South African acts including John Vlismas, Celeste Ntuli, Donovan Goliath and Joey Rasdien, as well as other African acts such as Basketmouth from Nigeria, Eddy Kadi of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Q Dube from Zimbabwe and Imran Yusuf of Kenya – but that’s not all!
While we’re not expecting to see our own Trevor Noah, we are looking forward to acts from the USA such as Jessica Michelle Singleton, Katie Burch from Australia and Eric Lampaert from Europe.
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The festival will resurrect some of last year’s favourite shows such as Vernac Attack and Stand Up Africa, with a new comedy line-up of some old faces and some new comedy talent coming together on each individual show.
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Bringing together comedic talent is the purpose of this festival and Bimha’s aspirations to create a festival that is of the same calibre as the Montreux Comedy Festival in Switzerland, at this rate, is a dream that could be realised in the next few years.
Details: www.jicf.co.za
