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Johannesburg – Watching a good Comedy Central roast is a guilty pleasure that many of us share. We’ve seen the likes of Kenny Kunene, Khanyi Mbau, and Steve Hoffmeyer get burned by the best local comedians, and now we get to watch some of those comedians take on each other.
On Thursday, Comedy Central hosted the first of many Roast Battles, which saw some of the best local comedians go head-to-head in a hilarious show-down. Speaking to The Juice, Evert van der Veer, Vice President of Comedy Central Africa, said he is extremely excited about the new show.
“Roast battle is a very exciting new format we’re introducing to this market. We’re going to do this for 6 consecutive months, last Thursday of the month. So we have 6 winners, after half the year there’s going to be a huge finale for the 7th episode in November.”
First in the world
The Roast Battle is the first of it’s kind to be hosted in the world. John Vlisman takes to the stage as the host of the series.
Vlismas says he expects comedians taking part to set aside their humainty for the night. “I’m expecting them all to lay aside their humanity just for one night and attack each other with everything they’ve got, in the interest of making the other people who are not involved ammused to beyond almost their toiletry functions. So it should be a lot of fun.”
Although participants are expected to be ruthless in their approach, there are 3 rules they have to follow, Evert explains, “You cannot physically touch each other, but you have to hug it out in the end. There’ s five jokes each only and they have to be original jokes, so they cannot have used the jokes before.”
Telling the tale of Africa
International comedian/actor, Orlando Jones, joined the judging panel on Thursday evening alongside David Kau and Kenny Kunene.
Speaking to The Juice after the show, Orlando says what he likes about the SA comedy scene is the ability of the comedians to tell good stories.
“I think what’s great about it is that it’s not homogenised yet so you really have people talking about what their life experience is or speaking from that experience. And in that way it’s more pure because once there’s a bunch of people who’ve made money doing something, like in the states comedy has made a lot of stars, you find that people just want to do comedy so they can be famous, not because they want to tell their story.”
Side note: Orlando is also a Nasty C fan!
Comedy Central’s Roast Battle will hit our screens from July on Comedy Central (DSTV channel 122). The overall winner of the series will walk away with a fully paid trip for two to the New York Comedy Festival.
