Apter’s hilarious comedy show comes home

Home grown, Johannesburg-born stand-up comedian Gilli Apter, who now lives in London, is back on stage this week with The Hilarious Deep Amazing Johannesburg Comedy Show. The SA Jewish Report chatted to her before she went on stage.

The title of your show gives nothing away. What can we expect?

You can expect about 90 minutes of stand-up comedy about various, mostly-relatable subjects like the difference between living in South Africa and living in Europe/the United Kingdom (UK), the weather, crime, traversing your 20s and 30s and getting to your 40s, and what that’s like regardless of the choices we’ve all made or where one is on the relationship spectrum. I also cover a bit about what travelling the world is like as a Jewish person, especially in the past year.

You have spent many months travelling the world in concert. What’s it like coming home?

It’s great coming home to South Africa for many obvious reasons like family, friends, and sunshine and less obvious reasons like how lovely and warm South Africans are. One appreciates it more when you’ve been away from it.

What does Johannesburg and South Africa mean to you?

Johannesburg is where I was born and raised, so it’s home. And like any good citizen of any city, at times I love it, and at times it drives me to the edge of madness.

How do local audiences differ from those abroad?

“Abroad” is very broad. Audiences in London are different to audiences in Zurich or Barcelona. However, generally, whenever you’re on your home turf, audiences fundamentally relate to you in a way that’s missing anywhere else you perform.

How do you connect with audiences in countries where their home language isn’t English?

I speak slower, talk about universally relatable themes, and avoid terms like “jislaaik”, “yoh”, “lekker”, and “car guards”.

When you get up on stage every night, do you have a script in your head that you recite, or do you gauge what the audience will want and take it from there? What’s your process?

Almost all stand-up comedy is scripted/rehearsed. Within that script, there’s improvisation that takes place depending on what comes up in that particular show – sometimes it’s a drunk heckler and at other times, something falls off the ceiling – but these things are all ultimately all woven back into the script.

Do people expect you to be funny off stage? Are you? How do you deal with people expecting the same person on and off stage?

Sometimes I feel that people are disappointed when I’m not cracking jokes constantly. Or they expect one thing and get something else, but I don’t resent it, it comes with the territory. What’s interesting is that people often feel that they have to be extremely funny around me, and I just want to tell them to chill.

What’s Gilli Apter like when she’s off stage?

Sleepy or chatty.

Why did you move to London?

Better opportunities for my career, and proximity to Europe where I do most of my shows. In the UK and Europe, one can make a living as an artist without being incredibly famous first because people are accustomed to attending and paying for cultural events whether they know the artist or not. It’s just part of the culture.

What inspires the humour that you bring to the stage?

Anything and everything. Whether it’s some big thing happening in the world, a relationship with a colleague/friend/spouse/Uber driver, an odd comment, or just a person walking down the road in a strange way – there’s tension in everything, and it’s my job to find it and share it.

In past shows, you used material around being Jewish and from an Israeli family. Have these become problematic in the past year? If so, how, and how have you dealt with it?

It has been hard to find a way to express it while being very scared – scared both emotionally, for the sake of “the show” so-to-speak, and scared for my physical safety. I’ve dealt with it by doing it slowly, carefully, and respectfully. And I’m still learning. One thing I’ve learned is that bravery is something you can practice.

People say that your humour is both Jewish and feminist. How would you react to that?

Agree. It’s those things. But it’s also a lot of other things – silly, relatable, political, hilarious, deep, and amazing.

• The Hilarious Deep Amazing Johannesburg Comedy Show is on at the Theatre on the Square from 3 December to 7 December.