Live stream tickets: Pieter-Dirk Uys says hello darling! – streaming live on July 17, 2020, from Penny Lane Studios in Cape Town
“There is no past and there might only be a future far away. It’s all about Now. So my performance is anchored in this moment in all our lives: how do we get through today to enjoy tomorrow. Next week is a rumour.” Pieter-Dirk Uys talking about his July 17 streamed show, Pieter-Dirk Uys says hello darling!
Pieter-Dirk Uys says hello darling!
✔ Date: Friday July 17, 6pm to Friday July 24, 7pm- watch live or anytime during this period.
✔Tickets: R70
✔Direct booking link: https://qkt.io/pieter-dirk-uys-says-hello-darling
✔Helpline: Penny Lane Studios: WhatsApp 0720707592
On Friday July 16, the eve of Mandela Day, Pieter-Dirk Uys is presenting his first lockdown show, Pieter-Dirk Uys says hello darling! The performance will be streamed from Penny Lane Studios in Cape Town, from 6pm CAT (Central African Time) for 67 minutes. That performance will go out live, in real time. It is not a recorded show. The link will be available for download until 7.10pm on Saturday July 17. Then, the link will expire. Stream it while you can.
This is a must stream opportunity to get see the iconic PDU give his take on the pandemic –assisted by “some of his most well-known characters who are now all staying two-metres apart while (sometimes) keeping their masks on”. Hopefully Evita Bezuidenhout will be in the studio. It remains to be seen who is in the Covid hello darling show.
If you are out of South Africa and wondering why the show is set at 67 minutes, this is in honour of Mandela Day, May 17 [Mandela’s birthday]. One minute signifies each year of Madiba’s public service and it has become customary on Mandela Day, to donate 67 minutes of time as a volunteer, donate 67 units of something (blankets for example) or multiples of R67 – foreign currency is better. The theme is 67 and people find ways of honouring his legacy. Mandela Day tends to take place as physical activations but obviously with the pandemic and lockdown restrictions, gatherings are not possible. In staging his show on Friday July 17, PDU is paying homage to Madiba and creating awareness that we must honour Madiba, however we can, during the lockdown.
Pieter-Dirk Uys lockdown interview:
TheCapeRobyn: This is your first lockdown show?
PDU: Not counting the times trapped in an SATV studio to be in a ‘pre-recorded live’ show – yes. This will be the first time I perform in an empty room with a lens watching me – but this time it won’t be a cat’s eye; it might be the whole world.
TheCapeRobyn: Format? Will it be a compilation of material from past shows and/or include elections on where we are at, as seen through your Evita and other personas?
PDU: What you see on Friday 17th from 6pm to 7.10pm will be a live me, talking, breathing, thinking and sharing. There is no past and there might only be a future far away. It’s all about Now. So my performance is anchored in this moment in all our lives: how do we get through today to enjoy tomorrow. Next week is a rumour.
TheCapeRobyn: As lockdown hit, you were about to do a new Bambi show. Will Bambi be Penny Lane Studios – ready to dish it up for us?
PDU: Bambi’s Never Too Naked was ready and able to embrace the world – and then the world stopped dead in its tracks. So Bambi is in quarantine and being shielded from any contacts – until there is a vaccine for an audience to come to the theatre and sit safely in an auditorium to enjoy live entertainment.
TheCapeRobyn: Every year you send put a Xmas/Festive greeting card. The 2019/2020 card depicted an interpretation of Edvard Munch’s The Scream by Nina van der Westhuizen. I think that you were putting that out as political metaphor – the scream of us all flummoxed by politics. Here in the pandemic, and we deep in a scream of utter despair with this virus which is holding us hostage?
PDU: That Xmas 2019 Scream was not looking into a crystal ball and seeing a pandemic. In November last year one just had to look at the reality of a world in trauma: Trump, Brexit, Syria, refugees, Putin, Zimbabwe and our very own state capture culture. This is before a virus captured our attention. But make no mistake, the scream is not less now; it’s more. Because once the virus has been neutralised, our state capture with its chorus line of comrades, criminals and liars will still be free to help themselves.
TheCapeRobyn: This show will go out live and then be streamed for a period. This is so different to what you are used to in front of a live audience?
PDU: Usually I am onstage nightly at 8pm for a number of weeks. That’s the same, except that in this case, I will be available in the safety of people’s homes.
TheCapeRobyn: The show goes out on digital platform. Fans will be tuning in from around the world. Will you be interacting with the comment bar- checking out who is there- watching?
PDU: No, I don’t shine a torch into my audience to see how they are reacting in the dark. Whoever watches me on Friday 17th for that 67 minutes will be the one person I focus on and entertain with the best show they’d ever seen.
TheCapeRobyn: Can you talk about being in lockdown in Darling? The Perron has been closed. The town feeds off tourism. It must be like a ghost town?
PDU: No ghosts yet. Life goes on behind closed doors. Everyone is taking the time to get their house in order, to plan for a new normal and not to catch the gogga [insect] and die!
TheCapeRobyn: The Voorkamer Festival is usually held in September in Darling. Will it go ahead?
PDU: Voorkamerfest 2020 cannot take place without a live audience. So it has been curtailed till next September 2021.
TheCapeRobyn: Anything else to say about the streamed show from Penny Lane Studios and what people can expect?
PDU: I hope this show will be the first of more – I have three planned for the rest of the year. Can’t see us welcoming live audiences into a contained space till 2021.
✳Direct booking link July 17, from 6pm until 7.10pm on July 18: https://qkt.io/pieter-dirk-uys-says-hello-darling
