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The minister responds: SA rail agency is broken
A statement from Fikile Mbalula, South African Minister of Transport 15 January 2020Prasa (the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa) has suffered blows from many years of mismanagement and deteriorating corporate governance. Today it is a broken organisation, struggling to provide an efficient commuter and passenger rail service. Overcrowded trains, ageing infrastructure, old rolling stock, …
A long love affair with trains
There is something so special about a long-distance train journey. You travel through so much more than geography. It feels like you can see time, the seasons, emotions, history, your life … unfolding … slowly. As you rock and roll gently through the countryside you see the scenery and the light change. You can feel …
A survivor’s guide to train travel in SA
A 10-point guide to resisting the South African railway service’s best efforts to ruin what should be one of the most beautiful train journeys in the world. Forget images of train travel from a bygone era. Banish those pictures of elegant couples sipping Earl Grey or G and Ts as they rock and roll gently …
Fabulous festive fun for the family
Cape Town City Ballet’s A Christmas Carol, The Story of Scrooge is excellent festive family fun, a classic-but-light lesson in the power of good over evil, of generosity over meanness. Real Christmas spirit stuff. The cast, which often seems largely made up of children and child-like adults, delivers a jolly, heart-warming evening of playfulness and …
Nik in full bloom after a little pruning
There is a reason that Nik Rabinowitz packs the house at the Baxter year after year. How we all love that hour or two of riotous laughter, the opportunity to step away from all the nonsense around us and laugh at a lot of it. I was surprised to hear this year that Nik is …
We are all just hanging by a thread
Less than a week after hearing Zolani Mahola tell her very powerful and personal story, seeing An Extraordinarily Ordinary Life at Alexander Bar felt like paying another instalment on an old debt (for bullets dodged). An Extraordinarily Ordinary Life is Jervis Pennington’s story, told by himself, of how he went from lead singer in a …
Full circle with ‘the one who sings’ … and writes and heals
We remember Zolani Mahola performing with Shakira at the opening ceremony of the Football World Cup 2010, the eyes of South Africa, a broken country longing for healing, focused on the pint-sized powerhouse. What we don’t know is that her energy and joyfulness belied a lifetime of pain carried inside. The lead singer of Freshlyground, …
Full circle with ‘the one who sings’ … and writes and heals Read More »
More first-class silliness from the Trolley Dollies
There are a lot of extras on the latest flight of fantasy from the Trolley Dollies – new cast members, some very impressively choreographed, well-rehearsed dance numbers, even eyewear from Oculus – but Three Blind Mice is also the classic, trashy, first-class fun we have come to expect from the rudest and brassiest of broads, …
More first-class silliness from the Trolley Dollies Read More »
Smart townships: The key to a thriving South African economy … put on hold
A ground-breaking South African project to position South Africa’s townships as the Smart Megacities of the Global South is on hold while new funding is sought. It makes me want to weep … Under the leadership of Emma Kaye, the Cape Digital Foundation’s project, which started as a local government initiative to increase the uptake …
Smart townships: The key to a thriving South African economy … put on hold Read More »
Satori: a sudden enlightenment
Cape Town City Ballet’s appropriately (and rather deliciously) titled Satori certainly felt like enlightenment, if not so sudden. We have been watching this incredible transformation for a while. It is a delight to see Debbie Turner and her team breathing of new life into this fabulous ‘old’ ballet company. Satori, a trilogy of works – …
It is my story … and it is yours, dammit!
The fact that we are still watching plays like Statements After An Arrest Under The Immorality Act, which is showing at the Fugard, is evidence of how short a distance we have travelled in a reasonably long time. Even if this new production of Athol Fugard’s powerful show, is my story, our story – whites …
A feast of small tastes of life in parallel realities
shnit film festival: a feast of delicious tastes of parallel realities