Schalk Bezuidenhout: Hey Hey Divorcé comedy review – Hilarious break-up woes
A surprisingly rueful and self-reflective hour from the South African stand-up
A somewhat unlikely booking for Valentine’s weekend, Schalk Bezuidenhout’s latest show feels compellingly raw in the wake of his recent divorce. But it’s mercifully free of the insidious recrimination, sly point-scoring and comedy as catharsis that overwhelms some comedians’ break-up routines. The generally placid, amiable, even camply nebbish South African has added considerable emotional turbulence to his delivery, often decrying himself for his besotted naivety.
He frequently bristles with rage. And he periodically vents or exasperatedly seethes. Yet the explosions tend to be directed at the estate agents who sold him a dream home that’s actually a nightmare, while his grousing is at the smug, still-married friends who offer him unsolicited advice about dating. Mindful, perhaps, of having a certain celebrity in his home country and knowing his ex-wife has no right-to-reply, Bezuidenhout is more than even-handed in the respect he reserves for her. She remains unnamed and scarcely sketched at all, virtually abstract, leaving the passages he shares from his touching wedding speech to convey the love, loss and pain that he’s felt.
But, while much of his ire is directed at himself, considerably more is attributed to the cruel, capricious hand of fate. Although wiser and more jaded now at 33, belatedly realising that in stand-up he has a mistress who will always have some spell over him, Hey Hey Divorcé is surprisingly optimistic about love. Partly, that’s a necessity: Bezuidenhout is now seeing a younger woman who’s good value for some bewildering generation-clash observations. But it also feels like he’s made a conscious decision to seek silver linings, even when toiling through a brutal ultra-marathon as some kind of masochistic self-punishment after the split. Heartbreak has no right to be this uplifting, nor as perceptive, thoughtful or woundedly funny.
Hey Hey Divorcé was reviewed at The Stand, Glasgow.