Kani and Sher provide meat for the mind

John Kani and Antony Sher

It’s South Africa, 25 years after the death of apartheid and the birth of the Rainbow Nation. Successful classical actor Jack Morris is struggling to learn his lines for the eponymous role in Shakespeare’s King Lear.

Interrupted by the doorbell, he is horrified to discover that the carer/nurse that he was expecting from an agency is actually Lunga Kunene, an elderly black man and senior nursing sister.

But why does he need a carer/nurse? Because he has stage four liver cancer. Can he live long enough to perform Lear? Can he stop seeing Kunene as all black people?

Kunene and the King is written by South African acting legend John Kani (the first black Othello on stage win South Africa in 1987, and also T’Chaka in Marvel’s Black Panther), who also plays Kunene in this RSC production, which has been seen in Stratford upon Avon and Cape Town before arriving in London’s West End.

Now, just to be clear, in 1985, after appearing in the anti-apartheid play Sizwe Bansi is Dead, which Kani co-wrote with Athol Fugard, he received a phone call saying that his father wanted to see him. On the way there, Kani was surrounded by police, who beat him and left him for dead. His left eye was lost in the incident and he now wears a prosthetic.

Kani is more than qualified to give lessons in what apartheid meant – and what its legacy means. He's lived it. And he is scathing, for instance, of Jacob Zuma’s corrupt governance.

At approximately 96 minutes – with no interval – this is a short work, but while it has plenty of laughs, it’s also full of enough intensity for double that time.

In some ways, it feels simplistic: yes, yes, yes – we (the white West) know about this! Don’t labour the point!

But any simplicity is superficial. There’s real meat here – on a number of levels. The clashes of culture, ‘othering’ – and not one by any one group alone; the universality of Shakespeare; the fear of mortality …

This is a deceptive work by Kani – a work that is utterly apt not just for South Africa, but (like the Bard’s works) for everywhere and perhaps particularly in these fraught times.

The work relies on the strength of the actors playing the roles in this two-hander. At first, you think that Kani seems physically constrained –  until you understand that the character is all buckled-up self-restraint: he’s seen the worst behaviour of both white and black South Africans in the fight to set his country free and subsequently, and is fighting against his own anger to be a good human being.

His has been a life spent constantly struggling within himself to be humane and to bolt down the rage within against what he has seen and experienced.

It is a superb performance.

Opposite Kani is his South African compatriot, Antony Sher, as Morris. And Sher also turns in a simply stunning performance as someone struggling with his place within history and against a dreadful disease. Neither of the men are flawless – but neither are evil either.

It’s on until 28 March. There are still tickets available – and I recommend it.

A Man of Good Hope that ultimately conveys hope

A Man of Good Hope, which has just finished a run at the Royal Opera House’s new Linbury Theatre is an extraordinary work: at once exhilarating and uplifting, yet also a deeply serious piece about violence, war, colonialism, racism and xenophobia.

Adapted by the Isango Ensemble from a 2015 book of the same name by Jonny Sternberg, it tells the true story of Asad Abdullahi.

In 1991, when civil war came to Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, two-thirds of the city's population fled. Among them was eight-year-old Asad, after his mother was murdered by a militia, and with his father somewhere in hiding. He was swept alone into the great wartime migration that scattered the Somali people throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the world.

Over the years, that migration takes Asad to South Africa, through refugee camps and into townships where xenophobia, hatred, resentment and violence reared their heads.

Somehow never losing his own humanity, Asad refused to give in: even when the odds seemed overwhelming, he continued to believe that, one day, he would be granted permission to go to settle in the global dreamland of the US of A.

Some reviews of A Man of Good Hope have suggested that it is a bit dodgy, since it’s an adaptation of a book by A White Man. Which rather misses the point that the Isango themselves are, y’know, black and African.

Indeed, if you want to compete in a competition for patronising white person of the year, you’d struggle to do it better than telling such a group that they’re ‘wrong’. Or that the premise of the US being a haven for refugees is ‘white saviour syndrome’. 

In the latter situation, the production makes absolutely sure you know, from very early on in the piece, that the belief in an America of no violence, no guns, wealth for all etc is a myth. When Asad and others continue to believe it, therefore, it is poignant because we know what a myth that is.

With a mini orchestra of eight marimbas, and a few upturned plastic bins, Isango has taken the story and turned it into an opera/musical: it’s not just national boundaries that are crossed here, but musical ones too, with styles from European classical to a wide variety of African styles.

It’s a serious, thought-provoking piece, yet somehow doesn’t leave one feeling depressed.

Siphosethus Hintsho (pictured above, bottom right) as the child Asad, rather steals the show – this is an exceptionally talented youngster – but Isango is an ensemble and there are no weak spots anywhere on stage. They all act, they all dance, they all sing, they all play instruments. And they all do it very, very well.

It’s difficult not to feel a Brechtian influence, but this is not westernised Africa: this is an African story – and a global one. And yes, given history, it is a predominantly South African way, with western influences. But ultimately, with an unmistakably authentic African voice.

Courage and love amid the brutality of apartheid

In 1976 in South Africa, riot police shot and killed black children and young people who were protesting against being taught many of their lessons in Afrikaans, viewed as the language of apartheid.

The government tried to claim the death toll was 23 students. It is usually now given as 176, but some estimates put it at up to 700.

One of those influenced by the massacre was Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu, who joined the ANC’s militant wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) shortly after.

After training, he and two comrades were sent back to South Africa with pamphlets and arms. But when the mission went wrong, all three tried to flee police.

Mondy Motloung shot two innocent civilians before he and Solomon were caught.

After it dawned on the authorities that torturing Mondy to the point of severe brain damage meant it couldn’t make him stand trial, they decided that Solomon would be the one to pay, under a doctrine of common purpose, though he had not shot anyone.

Mandla Dube, a US-trained cinematographer who has lectured at Wits University, has spent nine years bringing Kalushi to the big screen.

At a QnA after a BFI screening on 6 April – the date of the arrival of Jan Van Riebeeck in the Cape in 1652 and thus the date symbolically chosen for Solomon’s execution in 1979 – the director made it clear that they had not set out to make a film about apartheid: it is, instead, the story of one young man’s rite of passage; of what he does when he’s been backed into a corner.

But while one of those present whined that there was no politics in the film, this is utterly ridiculous: if apartheid (and politics) is not the theme of the film, then it is the context, and in that respect, the film is most certainly a political film.

How else could it be?

It depicts the state-sanctioned murder of children; brutality, torture and humiliation meted out by police; a corrupt judiciary and political regime that deliberately sets up to use the system to take symbolic revenge, irrespective of the facts of a case.

The same whinger also tried to complain that the film had not mentioned Angolan training camps where Cubans helped to train the volunteers. At this point, he was getting really funny looks, because, y’know, that white geezer in military uniform, with the beret, the Spanish accent and the great big cigar …

One can only assume that it was all too subtle for someone who was desperate that the protests outside the South African embassy in Trafalgar Square should somehow have been shoehorned into the story – presumably so that he himself could claim some of the glory for the defeat of apartheid.

Six hours of agitprop might have made him happier – but this will be seen by and will move and make think far more people.

If it does not directly ask questions of the viewer, it is good enough to leave you with questions. The most obvious here, is if you were in Solomon’s shoes, what would you do?

And with a regime that was quite happy to shoot children, how can one condemn an armed response – though the film is careful to stress that MK’s manifesto was absolutely clear about not targeting civilians and avoiding casualties. 

This is a very good film. It doesn’t gloss over problems, but its core is Kalushi’s personal journey to becoming a hero of the struggle against apartheid. And the character’s evolution is delicately drawn and beautifully acted by Thabo Ramesti – the first South African actor to actually play an icon of that struggle on screen.

He’s given excellent support from the rest of the cast, including Thabo Malema as the unstable Mondy, Welile Nzuza as Tommy London and Pearl Thusi as Solomon’s girlfriend, Brenda Riviera.

No matter the darkness of the subject matter – this is a powerful reminder of the nature of apartheid – ultimately, it is also an uplifting piece of cinema.

If you get the chance to see it on the big screen, then do. But it should be available on disc in the future, together with a documentary that Dube is working on.

@KalushiMovie – #GoSeeKalushi

Domestic bliss?

Call me domestic?

A few days ago, my ‘common-law sister-in-law’ (to channel her late father; my late father-in-law) noted that she found it strange, reading this blog, to see how enthusiastic I am about cooking.

Having met me when I’ve been in South Africa with The Other Half, she had trouble equating that me with what she thought was a rather more domestic me

‘Domestic?’ I thought, horrified. The mere word appalls.

I am not about to join the WI and make marmalade!

Oh.

Well, I won’t be joining the WI at any rate.

But why such horror at a mere word? Or to be more precise, what is it that the word ‘domestic’ conveys that would be so horrifying?

A big part of the problem is simply that people seem to consider that ‘domestic’ is somehow the opposite of an individual with independent views, ready to stand toe-to-toe (metaphorically at least) in a debate with a bunch of blokes in a very sexist society, all the while, quaffing beer and wearing a football shirt.

Now I know that Michelle will recognise that particular scenario. And thank goodness she was there that night, because all the other women present were playing a game of sitting around a table, away from the men, drinking nothing, refusing to engage in conversation and looking totally pissed off at the same time.

The Other Half was guest of honour at a braai arranged by some of his old schoolfriends.

From my point of view, it was downright surreal.

But remembering that evening, I can start to see why Michelle finds my passion for cooking to be at odds with the stroppy, gobby bird she saw at times like that.

Because being ‘domestic’ was what those women did, out of duty and cultural circumstance.

However, it’s utterly true that I love cooking – I even love shopping for food. Indeed, the more I get into cooking, the less I mind washing up. Now don’t worry, I’m not saying I actually enjoy it, just that I see it as part of something bigger.

These days, I’m getting almost as passionate about gardening, and given my love of my cats, I have clearly sunk into slightly dotty, domesticated middle age.

But this is still the woman who also loves football and considers Manchester City to be one of the very few tribes that she willing says she’s part of – indeed, losing her voice completely for two days after the biggest scream of her life when they won the title last May.

It’s the same woman who can be elated by listening to Beethoven or Bach or Wagner; who is intrigued by philosophy, who adores the wit of Austen and Wilde, who loves musical theatre (but NOT Andrew Lloyd Webber – I said I loved musicals, right?).

I can be uplifted and inspired by the work of Thomas Mann, and I remain fascinated by history – most particularly, that involving Prussia. After all, The Other Half doesn’t call me “a romantic Prussian’ for nowt. And I warn you, there’ll be more about this in the coming months.

I paint military miniatures and take photographs of architecture (old and modern) and candid snaps of people on the street, and yes, I even do needlepoint.

Does all that represent domesticity? Well, I doubt it.

The key, perhaps – well, in part at least – is the name of this blog.

If voluptuousness has a manifesto, what does that manifesto have to say?

Well, occasional bouts of seriousness aside, live life voluptuously – to the full.

And for me at least, food is a part of that. It is a sensual, earthy experience. There’s a reason that Puritans and their ilk warn against taking ‘too much’ pleasure in food.

As my mother would say: ‘We eat to live. We don’t live to eat.’

I don’t live to eat either – I have many things to live for and food is just one – but since you have to eat, why not make the most of it?

The gardening is partly about that eating too: once you’ve discovered just how good a strawberry or a tomato tastes when eaten straight after picking, you want more.

In other words, it’s an enormously sensual experience.

Get your hands into soil; hold a seedling and marvel at the delicate miracle of the life in your hand, and then be straightforwardly phlegmatic about it.

Stroke your cat – or your dog or the missus, if that’s what rocks your boat – and try not to wonder at how we can build relationships across species. And you didn’t think that the difference between Venus and Mars is a difference between species?

Look at the sky on a clear, crisp night, when Orion sparkles above and you can even see, with a small glass, the hint of the nebula, and tell me, in all seriousness, that you do not feel awe, and that that too does not have a voluptuousness to it; a sensuality, an almost erotic charge.

The Voluptuous Manifesto was a phrase I came up with as I sloughed off the skin of my personal repression. And while there’s nothing wrong with domesticity per se, it’s most certainly not voluptuous.

Making marmalade may be domestic. Reveling in the aromas, the sight, the very process, is not.

Domestic, I suggest, is diametrically opposed to life, and most certainly the antithesis of a sensual, joyous experience of life.

Discuss.

Congratulations and Jubileeations

Whatever one might think of the institution of monarchy generally or in the UK specifically, avoiding the splurge of Diamond Jubilee events is next to impossible.

There is something altogether surreal about watching an elderly woman who always seems mild enough and who has few meaningful powers (although let’s not forget the Privy Council) being fawned on by people.

Large sections of the media in particular seem to be having a pre-Olympic competition in sycophancy and hyperbole.

Perhaps we need a figurehead. Perhaps not. Perhaps a monarch is better than a president. Perhaps not.

But whichever side of that little debate you come down on, it’s a tad disingenuous to go on at length about her longevity when, unlike the overwhelming majority of her subjects, she has all the benefits of just about the best of everything – including health care – and certainly doesn’t have to get up in the morning worrying about what to get the children for tea – or whether she can afford to pay the gas that will allow her to cook it.

And indeed, to pick up a popular theme amongst some, her model of family life, which on the surface is the oft-spouted ideal, does not seem to have produced great success in terms of her children’s own relationship histories.

Although of course, living in a goldfish bowl doesn’t help. But if that’s the case, then why do we pretty much expect the monarchy to display itself to us – and condemn other celebrities if they do something similar?

The House of Windsor is largely another form of mass entertainment. It’s just one that we all pay for.

So, to jubilate or not to jubilate? That is the question.

Well, since it is probably nobler to join in than to sit churlishly on the sidelines, when the subject of a BBQ was raised among some of our neighbours, I was more than happy.

Indeed, while it’s a pity that it seems to take something like this to get communities mixing, it’s one of the ideas behind today’s Jubilee Lunch.

Our neighbours, though, don’t generally need quite as much encouragement to mingle. For around nearly half the residents of our block, the sun is all that’s required.

The gate that is now in action in our garden, allowing us easy access to the carpark, makes it easier for us to join in too.

On Friday, I nipped down to Borough – first to Savannah, a shop specialising in South African produce that sits under London Bridge station.

There I picked up two packs of boerewors, a six-pack of Castle for The Other Half to imbibe while doing his Man Cooking, and a small bag of biltong to make sure the cats had some sort of treat for the weekend too.

At the market, I found more beers – blonde and dark Brugse Zot from Brugge, plus a US craft beer, Blue Moon, which I decided to pick up for as naff a reason as that being the Manchester City fans’ theme song. I have to say, it's very nice.

I had bottles of magnificent Bavarian white beer Franziskaner due to arrive in an order the following day, together with the necessary ingredients for trifle.

The plan was to have our little party on Sunday, but by Friday evening, the weather forecast was very poor, with Saturday looking like much the best option.

It meant a few changes – the trifle was put on hold – but nothing we couldn’t cope with.

In the late morning, The Other Half made dough for roosterkoek – a South African bread that you cook on the griddle of the braai (BBQ) – while I scraped close to nearly one and a half kilos of Jersey Royals and then cooked them until just ready.

With all this in mind, last weekend, I’d cooked chicken in a pot with water, the giblets, range juice and rind, black pepper, bay and lashings of tarragon, then frozen the stock.

Now, this was brought back to a simmer and then poured over the just-cooked spuds. After a couple of hours, the potatoes had absorbed much of the liquid, taking on the flavours. All that remained was to take a few chives from the garden and snip them over the top.

I’ve bnot actually done much in the way of entertaining, so the amount had been a guess. But it worked well – and I’m delighted that the potato salad was very popular.

So too were The Other Half’s bread and the boerewors that he cooked on our small BBQ, which we wheeled through the gate to join the bigger party.

Two neighbours had put bunting up and, as we sat around, feeling chilled and under a grey sky, it was hard to imagine anything much more British.

But the sun suddenly pushed its way through the cloud, the day suddenly bright and hot.

Later, there were enough ripe strawberries to hand round a small bowl, ensuring everyone had the chance to try at least one.

The stunned expressions and comments as people realised the difference of what they were tasting was perhaps particularly gratifying – simply because it reassures me that I’m not deluding myself about the difference in taste.

Looking back, I don’t think that, even as the bunting fluttered in the breeze, anyone mentioned or gave a thought to the anniversary that it was all supposed to be about.

Beer was quaffed, music played, banter enjoyed – and every one of our small community, from one to 50-odd, seemed to be relaxed and thoroughly at ease.

And if that's not worth a spot of jubilating, then what is?

Man Cooking

You can tell it's nearly summer, because The Other Half decided to cook yesterday.

Well ... in a Man Cooking sort of way. Lighting a fire, watching the fire and then putting meat on the fire, while consuming alcohol.

That's perhaps a little unfair, because he also made 'pot bread', a South African speciality, which is cooked on the grill too. It didn't start auspiciously. He made the assumption that when the recipe said "20ml" it actually meant 'two large spoons full'. And the usual pinch of salt became a spoonful. Which would have been two if I hadn't spotted what was happening. So he produced an incredibly light dough.

I made a side salad of courgettes, very, very thinly sliced (a potato peeler does this well), and then tossed in a dressing of lemon and lime juice, lemon zest, virgin oil, honey, salt and pepper.

This is most definitely not South Africa.

The Other Half was born in Yorkshire, but when 12, his parents decided to move to South Africa – to Pietermaritzburg, to be precise; a place which has been rendered beautifully in print in Tom Sharpe's first two novels, Indecent Exposure and Riotous Assembly (he returned as soon as he'd finished his education and earned enough money for the trip home; and refused to visit until apartheid was dead and buried).

Sharpe's books were published in the 1960s, but the town is still recognisable – and I swear I met one of the characters when visiting a few years ago. A member of the police special squad, he was an old school acquaintance of The Other Half, and we managed a pretty instant dislike of each other.

A group of his former school friends, hearing that we were visiting, decided to arrange a braai for us. By the time of the evening in question, we'd already met one of them and his wife and all got on very nicely indeed. At the braai itself, however, I found myself on the receiving end of white South African customs – the women sit quietly at one end of the patio while the men stand around the fire with cans of Castle beer in their hands, jabbering away.

Sorry, but it just wouldn't do. Fortunately, The Other Half's sister, who was also with us, was company and moral support – since my attempts at convivial conversation with the other women fell about as flat as the proverbial pancake. And my jokes went down like a lead balloon. Perhaps it was because I would insist on actually talking to their menfolk too – and drinking beer. Out of a can.

Braais are not examples of healthy eating. Come to that, South African food – let's clarify: white South African food – is a million miles from healthy eating. There's meat – lots of it. Occasionally with some fish – 'turn 'n' surf' – but you'll struggle to find a vegetable. Other than potato. Mixed with bottled (never homemade) mayo to make a potato salad. And nobody eats that anyway – it's just there for show. That's braais for you. In detail.

The rest of the food isn't much better. Saturated fat and sugar are everywhere – it's no wonder there are high levels of heart disease amongst Afrikaners.

In the middle of the trip, we'd stayed at a resort in the mountains for a week (a break was required from The Common Law Mother in Law and the shopping malls of 'Maritzburg). The exchange rate had allowed us to bask in what was luxury for our inexperienced (at that time) traveling tastes. The dining room was amazing – but finding any healthy and light food was a daily adventure in itself.

After internet research, The Other Half went to three different London addresses yesterday morning, in the hope of finding South African produce to put on his fire – in particular, boerewors, a famous form of sausage. Two of the shops were closed, the third didn't have any fresh meat. He returned with biltong by way of compensation (which The Queen B instantly decided was fabulous) and sat down looking peeved. I refrained from noting that I had advised him to ring first – advice that he had considered silly.

So I returned to the farmers' market and bought steaks so that he could still do the Man Cooking thing – he seemed so disappointed.

But South African beer wasn't to be found for love nor money, so I just poured him a chilled glass of rosé from the south of France. And anyway, he'd already topped his bread with dried oregano and sage and declared it to be "fusion cookery".

It's not much of a braai, to be honest: just a very small tin box on legs, with a rack on top, bought locally from one of the Turkish shops. But then again, such things shouldn't be complex (he pours scorn on those creations that employ gas bottles and so on – presumably that's more Boy Cooking than Man Cooking).

The fire had been going for a while – newspaper (several pages of yesterday's sports section – which I hadn't had time to read before they went to their fate), plus charcoal and some wood (dried branches from the bay tree that we'd saved when we hacked it back last year). And then he put vegetables on (asparagus and a skewered, quartered onion).

The pot bread had squished up (no real surprise – too much yeast and liquid to too little flour). But it cooked very well and tasted darned good. I'm wondering whether I should increase the amount of yeast that I use in order to get a lighter dough.

And the rest of it was all jolly good too.

Perhaps I'll have to let him do Man Cooking again – at least a couple of times while the summer lasts!

Let's help to tackle 'corrective' rape

In South Africa, there has been a rise in so-called 'corrective' rapes of lesbians, whereby lesbian women are raped in order to 'make them straight'.

It's bad enough in major urban areas such as Cape Town, but even worse outside in more rural areas.

The rights of gays and lesbians are protected under South African law, but these crimes are not being recognised by the legal system as hate crimes on the basis of sexuality.

Please sign this petition to help raise this issue with the South African government, and to raise the issue of so-called 'corrective' rapes.

Please, help to make a difference now.