They say that being a stand-up comedian is one of the hardest jobs in the world and if you’ve ever been to a live comedy show, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Standing in front of an audience and attempting to bring, joy and 
happiness into their lives by using your own interpretation of what you believe is funny or laughable has got to be one of the most soul wrenching careers anyone can choose to pursue.
The quality of comedy I was privileged to see at the Nando’s Comedy Festival was near on life altering. Firstly, Trevor Noah is a genius. He truly has a South African comedic quality that appeals to all ages and on every intellectual level. He also featured as the MC for the evening, introduced and performed seamlessly between acts. For the first half of the show and directly after Trevor Noah’s opening set, the first comedian out of the blocks was South African, Eugene Khosa and in my personal opinion, the weakest of the comedians of the evening…taking too long to round the punch lines and seemed to skim the politically incorrect issues we deal with in South Africa on a daily basis. Bobby Lee, the 1st of the international act is an American-Korean literally blew my socks off with his, “below-the-belt” style of comedy. There truly were no sacred cows with this comedian and I appreciate that kind of candidacy from a comedic performance!
Inbetween acts and including a rocking intro to the comedy Fest itself, Jonathon Arons entertained us all with his multi-tasking and trombone playing skills. The man has some serious talent, dancing, performing and playing the trombone all at the same time! Kira Soltanovich, the last comedian before the half time interval was hilariously funny. Armed with pure Jewish-American feminism, her jokes were witty, humorous and perfectly balanced (although female orientated), which involved both the male and the female demographics for the evening.
Right out of the blocks, Trevor Noah’s introduction of Mo Mandel was again side-splitting to say the least. Mo Mandel’s performance was brilliant. The New York based comedian took some time warming up, but after gauging the South African audience slowly found his groove and begin the onslaught of appropriate, intellectual and more-some comedy. By far he was one of my favourite performances of the evening and I personally don’t go out of my way to look up comedians via the internet unless there is something special about their humour, but Mo Mandel perfectly qualifies as one of those comedians! If you have never heard of the man, do yourself a favour and YouTube the genius right now!
The final comedian for the evening would have to have been the headliner for the Comedy Festival, Pablo Francisco. Now, if you have never heard of Pablo Francisco, then my friends…you have not lived! This comedian/performer/voice over artist is one of the most talented men on the face of the Earth! Personally I have heard more than my fair share of Pablo Francisco before seeing him live and each and every time the man has brought to a double-over position. Hi rendition of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a National Geographic narrator…try and imagine the Austrian born body-builder vividly talking about a bumble bee and it’s struggle for survival in the jungle! I know…it’s almost unconceivable, but trust me, he does it and does it brilliant! Along with the other voices and short physical performance based jokes he does…the man is incredible and exceeded my expectations! What I did notice was that without the physical comedy and voices, as a comedian, he truly doesn’t have a large amount material relying on his voiceovers and renditions of selected public figures and celebrities!
To me, he’s a performer before a comedian and instead of absorbing a foray of intellectual jokes, it was almost a relief to just sit back and enjoy the performance literally laughing at the drop of every line! Overall, the show was incredible, from start to finish and I can guarantee that everyone in the Teatro at least smiled just once, and if you didn’t manage to crack a smile…then my electorate, you have no soul!
I’m kidding…okay, maybe no sense of humour!