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Showmax is launching Trevor Noah presents NationWild on Heritage Day, 24 September 2018. The show is a 13-part, 23-minute comedy showcase, where in each episode you get to see one of South Africa’s youngest, funniest comedians – as picked by Trevor.
Each episode features Trevor as MC, an interview with the featured comedian about their ladder to success, and then that comedian’s set.
The full list line up features:
- Bongani Dube: Best Newcomer nominee, 2018 Comics Choice Awards
- Eric Jansen: 2017 Best Newcomer nominee and 2018 Next Level Award nominee at the Comic’s Choice Awards
- Gavin Kelly
- Gilli Apter: 2018 Best Newcomer Comics Choice nominee
- Keenan Cerff
- Kraai Du Toit
- Lindy Johnson: Winner of the Savanna ‘Show Us Your Apples’ Open Mic 2017 Showdown and a 2018 Best Newcomer Comics Choice nominee
- Mbu Msongelwa
- Noko Moswete: 2015 Best Newcomer and 2017 Best Intermediate Comics Choice nominee
- Phil De Lange: Next Level Award nominee, 2018 Comics Choice Awards
- Tshireletso ‘Mo’ Mothebe: Standard Bank Ovation Award, Grahamstown National Arts Festival, two-time Comic’s Choice nominee: 2015 Best Newcomer and 2017 Best Intermediate Comic
- Tsitsi Chiumya: Best Newcomer nominee, 2018 Comics Choice Awards
- Virgil Prins (aka Prins): Breakthrough Comic, 2016 Comics Choice Awards
We’re super excited about the show and the showcase of SA talent, but we’re most excited about the three women in the line up who are Lindy, Gilli and Noko.
We spoke to them about their time on the show, what it was like getting into comedy and what the future holds.
Lindy Johnson
Lindy Johnson describes her comedy as “narcissistic monologue that is funny” and also has a pretty popular Twitter account (which she says just comes to her off the fly) says that she was chosen by Trevor to be a part of this diverse group of people by Trevor Noah to showcase new up and coming talent.
When asked what it was like to work with Trevor, I got probably the best response from Lindy: “Giiirllll, it was the best. [He’s] so nice and so sweet. He’s exactly what you think he is. He’s very cordial", says Lindy.
She adds, “One of my favourite things about comedy is that I get to work with so many people who have been doing this for a long time and who do it really well. So we have access to them and their wisdom all their time. So Trevor gave us that access to his wisdom and how he got there and tips on how we can better our comedy. Which is what every comic wants.”
While being such a hilarious comedian must be fun, it must have its drawbacks too, right? So I ask Lindy if she ever feels the pressure to be funny all the time and she confirms that she does.
“Not on Twitter, but when people meet me in Cavendish or after gigs and they expect me to be on and be that person and I don’t think that people realise that I put so much work into the timing, the subject and the material when I am on stage. I am a naturally jovial person, but I’m not gonna be a performer when you see me in the mall,. It’s just not gonna happen.”
I, of course, ask the obligatory “what do you think is the biggest challenge for women in the industry right now?” question and she answers: “I think it’s being asked that question all the time. It makes me feel very alienated. I want to be a comedian. I’m tired of being seen as a female comic, not just as a comedian. I work just as hard as the other guys and they don’t get that.
"So it feels very unfair sometimes, I feel removed from the scene when people see me as a woman comic, but I also have to acknowledge that it’s what’s given me an edge and has made me successful because want to see more because we are so scarce.”
Gilli Apter
Gilli Apter (Gilli with a hard G) was a writer and director (she’s written for the likes of Nik Rabinowitz) first before she started doing stand-up about two and a half years ago. Gilli feels that her involvement in NationWild seems to have come at the perfect time. “I think if this had come any sooner or later it would have been the wrong time. It felt, like, exactly right. It was terrifying, but the time was right. Like I had enough material and just enough confidence to pull it off and I was very excited about it,” she says.
Gilli describes Trevor as very professional. “He pays a lot of attention to detail, he takes in everything.”
READ MORE: Trevor Noah’s bestselling memoir Born A Crime to be turned into a movie
The first time she got on stage was absolutely terrifying she says.
“It was like having an out of body experience. Just dealing with the most basic things like the lights being too bright and hearing the sound of my voice on the speakers, it was intense, you know? My first performance was at The Box and that night was their third birthday show so it was sold out and the line-up was the Three Goliaths and Eugene Khoza.
"So it was the most intense environment with all these experienced, confident comics. And then there was little old me. But my plan that night was just to do well enough so that I wouldn’t be scared to try it again,” says Gilli.
So what happens when she’s asked to be funny by random people in real life? “It has the exact opposite effect. It makes me feel not funny at all,” says the comedian. “Comedians absolutely hate being asked to be funny or tell a joke. It’s their worst thing. It’s like, we’re happy to do and we want to do it, but we want to do it on our own terms.”
She says that being a minority in the industry is tough and something you’re always aware of, but sometimes you just need to put it aside and do the work. “Sometimes that’s hard to do. There are all different elements of it that are hard, like being onstage sometimes as a woman is hard. If someone heckles you, it’s always a guy heckling you about something sexual. The guys get heckled too, but they don’t get it in a manner that’s like that. They don’t get harassed like that.”
So what should you know if you’re a woman getting into comedy? Well, it’s gonna be hard breaking into it especially as a woman who walks into a comedy club. “You have to be okay with constantly being around guys. You walk into a group of guys and they naturally gravitate towards each other and you’re alone. That’s sort of the tricky part, right in the beginning, never mind even getting to the stage. You have to figure out how to be in that space and be okay with it.”
Gilli says that she often gets complimented on her shows, with an added “oh, because usually female comics are so terrible” added on to it. This is an obvious sexist remark and she says that it’s due to lack of female talent in the industry.
“People think women are terrible comics because there was the one woman that they saw in the only time that they went to comedy. They saw 10 guys and in those 10 guys, they saw three incredible comics, four mediocre comics and they saw three shocking comics, but there was one woman and she represents all of female kind.”
Noko Moswete
Noko Moswete was dubbed the Queen of Comedy by The Star in May. She thought that she wasn’t going to get on the show at first because after sending the producer her profile and hearing nothing back for about four months: “I thought Trevor had seen my photos and thought, I don’t like her. Nah!” jokes Noko, but she turned out to be wrong.
She eventually heard back that she was going to be on the show and she was in the supermarket buying electricity at the time when she heard the news. “I just had to tell the cashier and the guy who was standing behind me. I don’t know those people, but I told them ‘I’m on Trevor Noah’s NationWild’. Me!”
“I learned so much so much from the production team especially because I was a comedian, but I didn’t have the professionalism behind it,” says Noko. “Like having someone who records you behind the scenes and a professional make up artist for you and your cast. Now I’m doing my own shows and I have everything that I’ve seen on Trevor Noah’s NationWild.”
When I ask Noko if anyone ever tries to get her to tell them jokes randomly when they meet her and she says “I get that a lot and I always tell them that I can’t. I need an audience, payment, a stage and a microphone. I can’t just tell a joke. There are things that I need to get into the joking spirit.”
Growing up in a village and going to a boarding school in Limpopo and then going to the big city and telling jokes to people can be quite intense, but Noko says it hasn’t changed her.
She says, “I am still the same village girl, but what I have learned is that there are jokes that work in Limpopo and jokes that work in KZN. Like I have this joke about circumcision, so before I go perform in an area, I need to find out what is the general concession about circumcision.”
Noko also makes comedy videos as her alter ego Mokgaetji. “Mokgaetji is very, very rural and loud and uncultured and a bully. She thinks she knows everything. She doesn’t even listen to her husband. She’s a disaster.”
Catch Lindy, Gilli and Noko on Trevor Noah presents NationWild only on Showmax from Heritage Day, 24 September 2018.
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