Two Hazyview-based comedians recently faced a unique career challenge when they had to perform for a group of French-speaking attendees who understood neither English nor any of the local languages.

InnoMash and Pro Mad were tasked with generating laughter through interpreters at an event held recently at the Shabalala Interpretation of Culture Centre recently.

According to InnoMash, who has been in comedy for many years, he didn’t run out of jokes, but he did have to wait for the interpreter to stop laughing before the audience could start.

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“Despite the entire language barrier, the show ended up being a great one and a learning curve for me and my colleague to embrace diversity in languages. I need to learn to work with other people who speak different languages, since it was the first time I had to make a joke and have someone translate what I said. But the good thing is that they ended up enjoying our jokes,” he said.

Meanwhile, Pro Mad commented on the difficulty of the performance. “The show was difficult, but I managed to get the audience laughing when I was about to add a new line to the joke. This has taught me that to survive in this industry I need to familiarise myself with all situations, especially when there is a language barrier. Above all, I had fun entertaining the international guests who came to our village instead of going to the big city,” he said.

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Moozy Khumalo entertained the guests with live music and some of the guests invaded the dance floor with their moves.

Goodman Nkosi, the organiser of the event, stated that the centre is focused on uplifting the surrounding communities.

“We have traditional dancers and village tours; now we decided to add comedy to entertain our special guests from other countries. The language is a challenge sometimes, but with the assistance of the interpreter they get to learn our language at the same time,” he said.

Nkosi added that they are planning to host more comedy shows at the centre, in which locals will be given a stage to showcase their talents to the world.