It ANC what you do...

It ANC what you do...

The new democracy in South Africa changed the lives of all the country's citizens - not least those who made a living out of opposing the old regime. When Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as President on 10 May last year, Pieter-Dirk Uys went into hibernation for a year. His act had been based on countering apartheid by impersonating one of its staunchest supporters, the comical Mrs Evita Bezuidenhout, former Ambassador to the Homeland of Bapetikosweti. A larger-than-life Boer with ideas above above her station and more opinions than sense, Mrs Bezuidenhout was inevitably dubbed "the South African Dame Edna". She was fictional, but all too believable. She has returned, but as only one of a cast of characters in Uys's new show, "You ANC Nothing Yet" (full marks for political correctness, zero for the title). In his 90-minute act which reflects on the new democracy from the perspective of a vagrant's cardboard home, he will be playing, inter alia: Minister Pik Botha musing on being recycled in the new government, and civil servant Miss Honeyball, a far-right supporter who develops a virus for the State computers to take revenge on affirmative action.

Pieter-Dirk Uys's 'You ANC Nothing Yet' is at the Tricycle Theatre, 269 Kilburn High Rd, NW6 (0171-328 1000) tonight at 8pm and tomorrow at 4pm and 8pm. Then 26 Jun-1 Jul