Spend an evening with Pieter-Dirk Uys

Fifteen cardboard boxes on stage.

Each filled with characters and stories.

And Pieter-Dirk Uys.

That’s all the visuals required to make Uys turn his latest show into an evening to be talked about long after the fact.

Now in his late ’60s, Uys can vividly recall the recent history of South Africa with ease and is probably the most up-to-date person on current South African politics.

He engages his audiences, speaking to the young, the expat, the gay and the gatvol.

“An Audience with Pieter-Dirk EISH” is just that.

With the choice of 15 boxes on stage, a member of the audience chooses a number.

Out come characters and entertainment that could be a drama, a comedy, a farce or a shocking exposé.

Every box holds a familiar laugh, all truly South African!

Uys is on stage sharing a life that reflects the lives of so many of his audience, memorable experiences growing up in South Africa then and now, and doing sketches of various characters and their unique stories, some of them harking back to that dark past; most of them trying to make sense of this crazy future.

Every night the show and the characters will be different.

Still inspired by his scriptwriters, the government of the day, Uys takes a night to present his life in theatre, on stage, through satire, celebrating survival – frocked or unfrocked – ever transparent.

In conversation with an audience usually means a dialogue, a Q & A, a grilling and often a roasting.

This might be all of those, interspersed with some of the 80 characters from his 40 years in the political arena, brandishing his weapon of mass distraction: humour.

Uys presents a celebration of free speech, an orgy of laughing at sacred cows, an embrace of being in a relatively healthy young democracy.

“An Audience with Pieter – Dirk EISH” is on at the Lyric Theatre, at Gold Reef City Casino, for two nights only, on March 28 and 29.

The shows start at 8.30pm.