REVIEW OF THE END IS NAAI in CAPE TOWN — JULY 2004
A Hilarious Take on Ten Years of Democracy
– Cape Town Today, July 2004
Pieter-Dirk Uys returns to Theatre on the Bay with his own tribute to ten years of democracy in a riotous show filled with tongue in check humour, scathing satire and political reflection.
"The End is Naai" features old favourites like Winnie, Pik and PW Botha, as well as a variety of new sketches. Kadar Asmal is added to the list of luminaries worthy of Uys's wrath in a sketch on outcome base education, and Grace Mugabi achieves another level of notoriety, beautifully backlit in ominous red, discussing land grabs in Zimbabwe and Stellenbosch.
Then there's Nowell Fine, an elderly kugel who adopts an AIDS orphan and a flight attendant giving the audience a tour, which I'm sure was not in the official government PR release, of the new presidential plane.
At times one feels Uys might be going soft. The government receives much credit and, upon reflection, perhaps deservedly so, but the show does end with Uys at his deadliest: Having a frank, almost sinister, discussion with a Mbeki puppet about AIDS in South Africa, which in certain countries would earn a prison sentence, if not worse.
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