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Trevor Noah Presents NationWild, a 13-part comedy showcase of South Africa\u2019s brightest young comedians, is now streaming first and only on Showmax. \u201cI\u2019m really excited for Mzansi audiences to discover their new favourite comedians,\u201d says Trevor.<\/p>\n
Considering that African comedians like David Kibuuka and Loyiso Madinga have already appeared with Trevor on The Daily Show, anything\u2019s possible next for the 13 stars he hand-picked for Trevor Noah Presents NationWild: 2018 Comics\u2019 Choice Next Level winner Phil de Lange and Best Newcomer winner Tsitsi Chiumya; 2018 nominees Bongani Dube, Eric Jansen, Gilli Apter and Lindy Johnson; 2017 Best Intermediate nominees Noko Moswete and Mo Mothebe; and 2016 Comics\u2019 Choice Breakthrough Comic Award winner Virgil Prins (aka Prins), not to forget rising stars Gavin Kelly, Keenan Cerff, Kraai Du Toit and Mbu Msongwela.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the moment that could make or break my career,\u201d says Johannesburg comic Eric Jansen. \u201cThis is my opportunity. It still doesn’t feel real. Me? Really? The kid from Reiger Park?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got the call, I thought it was fake news,\u201d echoes Gavin Kelly, a Pretoria comic who also writes for the SAFTA-winning The Bantu Hour. \u201cI still think Leon Schuster is going to pop up somewhere and say you\u2019ve been schucksed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Similarly, Mbu Msongelwa, a comic originally from Mdantsane township outside East London, didn\u2019t believe the news. \u201cIt came out on the first of April, so you have to wonder,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Pretoria comic Kraai du Toit was the last comedian to be announced, so his problem was getting other people to believe he\u2019d really been selected. \u201cThere was a guy called TBC on the first list, so people didn\u2019t believe me because my name wasn\u2019t on that line-up,\u201d says Kraai. \u201cNow I\u2019m thinking of changing my name to TBC.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each episode of Trevor Noah Presents NationWild features a short introductory set by Trevor as the host, an interview with the featured comedian about their ladder to success, followed by that comedian\u2019s set.<\/p>\n
One name that pops up repeatedly when these comedians talk about their career paths is Jason Goliath of The Goliath Comedy Club.<\/p>\n
Having come to Johannesburg with a BCom Law and management degree, Prins had burned through his savings and still didn\u2019t have a job. He was a day or two away from moving back to the Eastern Cape defeated, when Jason called him, told him not to leave, and hooked him up with a job at a call centre that allowed him to pay his rent while getting his comedy career off the ground.<\/p>\n
Gilli Apter, who writes for comics like Nik Rabinowitz and SAFTA-winning shows like ZANews and Those Who Can\u2019t, might also not have started performing her own stand-up, if not for Jason. \u201cStand-up was something I probably always wanted to do but was too scared to do,\u201d she admits. In September 2015, she went to a corporate with Nik, and met Jason and Donovan Goliath. \u201cThey said, \u2018You\u2019re a writer. Why aren\u2019t you performing?\u2019 Jason said, \u2018Whenever you\u2019re ready, we\u2019ll give you a spot.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Goliath & Goliath won the Comics Choice\u2019 Friends of Comedy award for three years in a row from 2015-2017, so these stories won\u2019t surprise anyone in the industry. But some of the other people credited for the comedians\u2019 success will be more surprised.<\/p>\n
For Bongani Dube, a comic from Venda, he\u2019s hoping Barbara, a girl from school, will be streaming his set. \u201cI was tiny and super skinny at school,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d get bullied by girls. There was this one girl, Barbara. If I find her, I\u2019d hug her and say, \u2018Barbara, you made me a better comic.\u2019 She pushed me into finding a way not to fight back, because you don\u2019t want to hit a woman, so I had to find a way to strike her back with words.\u201d<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s not always simple convincing your parents that being a comedian is a viable career choice; in Lavender Hill comic Keenan Cerff\u2019s case, his mother walked out of his first comedy set, although she did leave him Uber money.<\/p>\n
So Mbu speaks for many of the comics when he says, \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to my mom seeing me on TV, being introduced on stage by Trevor Noah, to give her some perspective on the career I can have, so she can see this as an actual career.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Keenan, it\u2019ll be validation for more than just himself. \u201cI want to give the people of Lavender Hill hope,\u201d he says. \u201cIn Lavender Hill, if there is someone who has talent, or wants to study, they often don\u2019t have money and you have this society that pulls people down, that tells you that you can\u2019t do this, that tells you, \u2018Why don\u2019t you just go pack at Checkers?\u2019 I\u2019m the shy, soft, quiet child and now I\u2019m about to do this. So I just want people to know that whatever they want to do, they can do it. As long as they keep pushing and believing, they can achieve whatever they want. They don\u2019t have to follow that gangster or this person or that person; they can just be themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
That, ultimately, seems to be the key lesson that all the comics have learnt in their career so far: that they are funniest when they are most true to themselves. As Keenan puts it, the best advice he ever got from a comedian was to stop trying to be funny and to rather just be himself on stage and tell people his stories and where he\u2019s from. Because in this country at least, the truth is always the best punch-line and funnier than any fiction.<\/p>\n
Laugh your way through all 13 episodes of Trevor Noah Presents NationWild only on Showmax.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Trevor Noah Presents NationWild, a 13-part comedy showcase of South Africa\u2019s brightest young comedians, is now streaming first and only on Showmax. \u201cI\u2019m really excited for Mzansi audiences to discover their new favourite comedians,\u201d says Trevor. Considering that African comedians like David Kibuuka and Loyiso Madinga have already appeared with Trevor on The Daily Show,… Continue reading ‘Trevor Noah Presents NationWild’ Now First And Only On Showmax<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[110],"class_list":["post-7662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online","tag-showmax","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}