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BY BILLY SUTER
DURBAN was sidestepped for comedian Mark Banks’s latest solo show, Mark Banks on Ice, but good news is that if you’re up for a drive to Hilton, it will have a single performance at the Anew Hilton Hotel, in Hilton Avenue, at 8pm for 8.30pm on August 23.
Tickets for the show – which sees Banks discussing everything from extreme Joburg security measures to Elon Musk’s plans for world domination; running into people from your high school who haven’t died yet; and coping with life in general – cost R175 each from Quicket.co.za or R200 at the door.
The show, which has nothing to do with ice, by the way, is one of a number of events planned by Swing Café Entertainment which, after having been based in Cape Town and, until more recently, Scotland, is now based in the Hilton area.
JP Vorster, also known as DJ JP Silver, heads the company with his business partner, comedian and writer Alyn Adams.
The company name comes from an online radio show JP hosted on Cape Town underground station Mutha FM, when he first started playing electro-swing music. It was called The Swing Café and was broadcast from 3pm to 5pm on Thursdays, from 2013 to 2016.
This developed into the banner under which JP produced various stand-up comedy shows, DJ parties and live music events around Cape Town – such as Mel Miller @ Theatre On The Bay, the weekly Swing Café Variety Show (at The River Club Observatory and later Mercury Live), Bootleggers Electro-Swing DJ parties.
He presented similar events in Scotland, where he lived from 2017 to 2019.
“Mark Banks On Ice at Anew Hotel Hilton is the first of three shows planned in Hilton for 2019. Two more show with big-name headliners are in the making,” says Vorster, who adds that Swing Café Entertainment is also producing the countrywide 13-month tour of Adams’s one-man show, Cannabliss: Everything You Want To Know About Dagga But Keep Forgetting To Ask.
The show debuted at the Heat City Comedy Festival in Durban this month and will be staged in Johannesburg at Parker’s Comedy & Jive on Sunday, September 8, and in Pietermaritzburg in late September/early October, with further dates still to be announced.
Besides stand-up comedy, the Swing Café has also hosted two DJ events at Fern Hill Hotel (Rock-n-Roll Heaven and ’80s Dinner & Dance), as well as WhatTheFunk at Crossways Hilton. Similar party events are being planned for later in the year.
In addition, DJ JP Silver is also booked for two gigs in Johannesburg in September with Swing Cafe Experience, his DJ act with live saxophone and burlesque dancers.
JP Silver is a diverse DJ with 14 years professional experience playing an array of genres at clubs, festivals, corporate events and private functions.
He specialises in electro-swing, electro-blues, rockabilly, blues and rock, general and also offers a range of other music genres.
.....SoSuterBill..... 