On Stage: Lottering reaches the stars

On a hot night, feeling sweaty and grumpy, I staggered into Marc Lottering's new show, This is Captain Lottering Speaking, uninspired.

My guest, a cynical lawyer with a flagging sense of humour, once an aspiring honky-tonk man, felt the same.

We sat behind David Kramer, who was sporting his signature hat. I felt like klapping it off his head, just sommer. Yes, the mood was bleak and bitter.

I have been seeing Lottering's shows since his first one, After the Beep, in 1997 at the old Coffee Lounge), and from the moment he entered the mood in the auditorium lifted.

Next to me sat the attorney, the musical one, who was to accompany Lottering on the piano that first opening night 17 years ago but pulled out, leaving the comedian in the lurch. A theatrical coitus interruptus if ever there was one, want kyk hoe lyk hy nou.

I remember seeing Evita Bezuidenhout around the mid-1980s in this very venue, the same stage, and thinking, wow, Pieter-Dirk Uys, you are at the top of your game. Thirty years later I am sitting in the same spot and thinking, Marc, slaan my stukkend met 'n nat snoek.

Lottering is at his zenith, in his prime. He wears a sexy suit, one that shimmers and dances with him. He moves from the one character to the next like a whirling dervish doing the rumba, in and out of different costumes. The hair stands wild, like an Eskom blowjob.

He delivers one funny line after another, his timing perfect, his punchlines ra-ta-ta-ta, like machine-gun fire. Kramer laughed so loudly (like everybody else) that his hat fell off.

Lottering sends himself up relentlessly and parades his coterie of eg Kaapse-bredie Cape Flats characters from Aunty Merle to Galatia Geduldt, Pastor Brandon, Smiley the taxi gaartjie and Colleen, the cashier from some fresh nightmare. Indeed, Captain Lottering, you are in full flight.

• 'Marc Lottering: This is Captain Lottering Speaking'is on at the Baxter Theatre until January 10