Savanna announces nominees for the 2016 Savanna Newcomer Award
This year’s finalists, Snooze Kambuwa, Farhan Esat, Ebenhaezer Dibakwane, Phil de Lange and Thabo “Summary” Kgaphola all have the apples to take on the comedy scene after strutting their stuff at the Savanna Newcomer Showcase, held at the Soweto Theatre in May.
The Savanna Newcomer Award will be announced at the sixth Annual South African Comics’ Choice Awards on 3 September 2016 at the Teatro at Montecasino in Johannesburg.
“Comedy in South Africa is a growing industry and Savanna understands what it takes to make it in the industry from its involvement with comedians for the past 20 years. The company certainly has the apples to help discover new talent and give them a leg up onto the big stage to launch their careers in comedy,” says Tania Kotze, Savanna SA marketing manager.
Previous Savanna Newcomers who have become giants of South African comedy include Deep Fried Man in 2011, Dillan Oliphant in 2012, Schalk Bezuidenhout in 2013, Loyiso Madinga in 2014 and Yaaseen Barnes in 2015.
This year’s lineup
This year’s Savanna Newcomer nominees represent new, diverse stand-up acts.
Kgaphola is ready to take his act as class clown from the University of Johannesburg to stages around the country. He is also a nominee for the Savanna Audience Choice Comic Award, the only award open to public votes at this year’s South African Savanna Comics’ Choice Awards.
Another Johannesburg nominee, Esat, was a semi-finalist at last year’s Swiss Montreux International Comedy Competition and is a co-host of the weekly GAS Comedy Show on CliffCentral.
Apart from stand-up comedy, Dibakwane, also based in Johannesburg, is a sketch actor and writer, with TV-appearances on SABC2’s Bantu Hour and ANN7 sports show, Game On.
Malawian born nominee Kambuwa, performed at Africa’s first Comedy Central International Comedy Festival last year, another Savanna sponsored event.
Cape Town nominee, de Lange, cracks jokes while playing the ukulele on stages across the Mother City including the Savanna-aligned Cape Town Comedy Club.
Awards night
The 10 award categories are:
- The Savanna Newcomer Comic
- The Intermediate Comic
- The Comics’ Pen Award
- The Comic of the Year
- The Lifetime Achiever Award
- The Flying Solo Comic Award
- The Non-English Comic Award
- Best Friend of Comedy
- The Breakthrough Award (new)
- The Savanna Audience Choice Comic (only category open to public vote)
Voting for the Savanna Audience Choice Comic Award can be done via SMS to 37303 using the unique code available at www.comicschoice.com. SMS costs R1.50 per message and is limited up to 20 votes per mobile number.
