Review: Being normal is being happy with your life, a tonic of a show with Mr and Mrs Normal

Mr & Mrs Normal, with Aaron McIlroy and Lisa Bobbert is on in Cape Town at the Masque in Muizenberg for a very short run of four shows. I attended the opening last night, February 26. The season ends on Saturday, March 1. It is a fabulously uplifting, entertaining and laugh-out show. The audience was dancing in the aisles. I loved this show. It is a tonic.

McIlroy and McIlroy give a new spin to Duracell bunnies. Where do they get the energy? They sing and dance and are deliciously self-depreciating in sending up aging – creaking knees and dodgy backs. Their humour is hilarious, wry and perceptive as they bring on wacky characters: Charmaine and Siobhan (gym bunnies), Bruce/Elvis, Dot and Max (old couple), Martin and Ricky (Mexicans), Delphine (car guard) and Dr Veegay Naidoo (beyond word to describe this dude in his green tracksuit, heckling the audience).

Charmaine and Siobhan, two Lycra clad ‘mature’ women with Kugel accents are a scream as they check out the talent. They muse about the gym as a cult. Bruce channelling Elvis battles to get up from his squats. The Old Couple, Dot and Max have the audience in stiches with their shtick. They are flummoxed by this world of ours and the language – like ‘woke’. They rail against the norm of phone etiquette which dictates that we must message first, before making a call. In the old days, one could dial, without a preamble. And why can’t the kids keep the grandchildren in line, by teaching them manners? Dot and Max are a riot of gags and quotable lines.

McIlroy and Bobbert’s signature mining of their own lives for material and injecting it in their fictional character is evidenced in this show. For instance, there are jibes about people sending WhatsApps messages (rather than calling in personally, with a sandwich). How helpful is it to say “sending love and light” to people whose house has just burned down? Sending light? Their house in Durban did burn down and they got through that with humour and insurance. It is wonderful how they transmute the pain and grief into comedy with that one line. [Coping with the fire, see interview https://thecaperobyn.co.za/interview-mr-and-mrs-normal-the-turbo-charged-aaron-mcilroy-and-lisa-bobbert/]

The show ends upbeat with Local Is Lekker, a vooma injected medley of South African songs such as Burn Out by Sipho Hotstix Mabuse and Special Star by Mango Groove. See clip: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/196TFkBoCn/

Mr & Mrs Normal digs deep and playfully into what may constitute normal in our society, with uproarious dialogue, interlaced with singing and dance. Bobbert and McIlroy received an Ovation award National Arts Festival Makhanda for the show and deservedly so. Tremendous work has gone into to the script and the production. I cannot recall the last time that I saw sketch comedy with multiple costume and wig changes and characterisation. Fabulous.

Kudos to Daisy Spencer for her articulate direction, ensuring a seamless shift between sets as Bobbert and McIlroy do lightening quick changes into costumes and wigs. When they are in character mode, costumed and wigged, getting their teeth into an array of accents, they are unrecognisable as Lisa Bobbert and Aaron McIlroy. It is a lot of fun, watching the wacky peeps emerge out of the wings; like theatre magic.

On one level, there is the shtick and the characters sticking it at themselves but beyond that, the sketches are cantilevered around the compelling conceptual arc, riffing off shades of normal. The take-home is that there is no “normal” and that we should accept who we are and not compare ourselves to others. Mr & Mrs Normal is a prompt to celebrate our quirks. Being normal is being happy with your life. Love that.

❇ Mr & Mrs Normal, the Ovation Award winning comedy created and performed by Lisa Bobbert and Aaron McIlroy. This pic from the season at the Masque in Cape Town, February 26 to March 1, 2025. Pic: Robyn Cohen/TheCapeRobyn.