South African comedian and actor, Alan Committie, says that from a young age he knew he wanted to be a performer and took a strong interest in comedy which has led him to build the successful career he has today.
On the Indaba Show this week with Steven Taylor, Committie speaks about how he found out he had a “funny bone” and decided to pursue theatre.
He is renowned for his eight year stint as the star of the Broadway hit Defending the Caveman and racked up 963 performances around South Africa.
Originally from Cape Town, Committie was born in Wynberg Military hospital. He went to primary school in Vanderbijlpark but later moved back to the Cape where he went to Westerford High School.
“By the time I got to standard five [grade seven], I asked my parents if I could study theatre. The look of disappointment on their faces was a little disconcerting, but they were very good actors. Better actors than I was at that stage. But they were amazing and they supported me through that. I had also committed even at 12 to have a backup career of teaching,” he said.
At the University of Cape Town (UCT) he studied BA in Performing Arts and also did a teaching diploma and taught for eight years.
Now at 48-years-old, he has featured in a number of well-known theatre productions, musicals, series and movies, including the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and more recently he featured in a local Mnet detective series, Recipes for Love and Murder.
Speaking on his comedy shows, he says most of his shows are family friendly but he does enjoy to push the envelope in terms of his content.
“This notion of what you can and can't say, I think the onus is on the comedian to interrogate their own material and to push the boundaries, but also to question if what they say is okay. Is what they are saying moral?”
* This article was published first by Magic 828. See original article here.