It’s a typical Friday afternoon for comedian Simmi Areff. He sits across the table in the Joburg Theatre Canteen, South Africa, with a hookah pipe in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. Every ten minutes his phone vibrates as his manager tirelessly tries to track him down. Areff is surprisingly calm for someone who is about to go on stage in two hours before the withering stare of a hard to please audience. It’s even more surprising when he says hasn’t got a clue what he is going to say.
“After tonight I’ll be able to tell you if I was ready or not, but the only thing I can do wrong is disappoint them. I have about 30 minutes of the show, but it’s that last 15 minutes. I don’t know if I’m going to talk to people or what. Lots of people say that talking to people is not part of a one man show, but it’s what I’m good at. It’s what I’m known for, so why not. So I’m going to talk to people, I don’t know who yet but I’m going to do it,” he says through a cloud of mint-flavored smoke.
Areff grew up in a Muslim part of Durban. He moved to Johannesburg in 2011 with $2.80 in his pocket and a dream of being a stand-up comedian. He spent his nights telling gags for his dinner, moving from bars to clubs in Melville, a trendy suburb in Johannesburg known for its comedy scene. Sometimes he did them for free merely for exposure. It was a hard time for him and his flatmates; especially as they are also struggling comedians. Once, they were so poor all they could afford for supper was a lollipop.
“That was many years ago. We didn’t have any food. We just had a Fizzpop. So we broke the lollipop and someone ate the stick,” he says.
“Our industry in this country tells you the game. You must go to clubs and do 500 open spots. You must then do intermediate spots. Then you must become a headliner. When you are a headliner you must start doing corporate gigs. You make all your money on the corporate circle then you do one man shows. I said no. I don’t do comedy to do corporate gigs. I do comedy to make people laugh,” says Areff.
Loading...
“I miss home every day; I miss my mom irritating me and my dad trying to tell me jokes thinking I am going to use them. Durban is a small town but once you move to Joburg you can go anywhere else in the world.”
Three years on from the day of the lollipop, Areff makes $1,800 a show.
As his name grew, so did the shows. Although he hated them he charged outrageous prices for corporate gigs and he was shocked that people were willing to pay.
Simmi Areff
“I had R30 in my bank account, and then that night I had R6030 in my account. Things change very quickly in Joburg,” he says.
Backstage, Areff sits in a corner with a pencil and paper writing out jokes for his first one-man show ‘Strictly Makrooh’ which opened in November. The comedian spent $760 to book the venue for his show. Areff sold out without spending a cent on advertising. He just tweeted about it. He even stopped the show for fans to take pictures to tweet about him.
Under a cool blue light the audience of 300 waits for the show. Areff emerges in to rapturous applause. His jokes take a swipe at a Muslim growing up in South Africa; the days of dodging jellyfish on Durban’s main beach, the days of having to shave his beard to avoid being looked upon as a terrorist.
Then he turns on the crowd. He targets a fashionably dressed man in his late fifties in the front row.
“Wow it’s so nice of you to come to my show. It’s so nice of you to bring your mother,” says Areff.
“It’s not my mother, this is my wife,” says the man.
The audience flinches. Areff looks up.
“Oh well sorry for you, I don’t know why you would married someone so old,” says Areff.
Off-stage controversy follows Areff like a bad joke. In 2012, Areff offended two Muslims so badly they waited for him backstage. Security arrested the two.
It is not the first time his jokes have been taken the wrong way. The South African National Halaal Authority (Sanha) threatened to sue Areff for using their logo for ‘Strictly Makrooh’. The logo read ‘HAHA-laal’.
“A lot of people ask if I got tickets sales for that, but the truth is I didn’t. Maybe during that period 40 tickets were sold but I had already sold 150 tickets. It was great publicity. Apparently I was even on TV in Australia,” says Areff.
“I was inundated with hate mail. My phone was off the hook with private number calls. It was here in the Joburg Theatre, October the 18th, a Friday. I knew I had to go face a few thousand people who might hate me or love me. I was sure they heard the news. I walked onto the stage and thought, wow this could go really bad. I went out and said ‘so I think you’ve heard about me this time. These guys just tried to take me to court.’ They all giggled. Then I knew I had nothing to worry about. My fans didn’t care.”
Areff has had his fair share of deaths on stage. His most recent in 2013 was on tour in the small town of Mafikeng, 300 kilometers North West from Johannesburg, with Riaad Moosa, who played Ahmed Kathrada in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013) and the lead role in Material (2012).
“It was the first time that I had performed in front of Muslims in a long time. I was very nervous and I died on stage. They [the crowd] were very conservative. They didn’t get me. But then Riaad also went on and he also died. I felt much better,” he says.
Areff also wrote jokes for comedian Trevor Noah and Late Night News’ (LNN) Loyiso Gola. One of his first skits on LNN was a female Muslim in a Chador singing a parody to Puff Daddy’s I’ll Be Missing You. The video is still on YouTube.
It’s an incredibly hard market to break into, but it’s desperate for new talent says Areff.
“Loyiso Gola told me ‘you know what your problem is? Your ego is bigger than your comedy. But once your comedy is bigger than your ego you will see how things change’. This year my comedy has been the same level as my ego,” he says.
When it comes to the funniest jokes he has ever heard, Areff says it’s hard to keep track.
“I hear so many every day. But the funniest one I heard last year was when Eugene Khosa said that Mac Maharaj [the official spokesperson of the president of South Africa], was the autocorrect of Jacob Zuma. I remember I laughed out loud for days after that.”
The comedian has learned to roll with the punches; and has dodged a few. With $2.80 in his pocket Areff’s journey as a comedy entrepreneur has led him to the wild side of life. What a journey it has been from a man who wanted to share a lollipop. FL
Loading...