Van Vuuren’s show a tonic during tough times

Rob van Vuuren — Enough is Enough

GENRE: Comedy

FORMAT: Video

DURATION: 60 mins

LANGUAGE: English

AVAILABLE FROM : July 9 (Video on Demand)

“Enough is enough and so are you”

If there's anything to take from SA Comedian, actor and writer Rob van Vuuren's latest one man show at the National Arts Festival it is this — the notion that we are doing enough and we are enough, and not to let anyone tell us otherwise.

Presenting himself as a 'de-motivational' speaker Van Vuuren talks of our collective trauma as South Africans and the many levels of lockdown and isolation we've had to endure over the past year.

Relayed to audiences as an 'anti-motivational' speech Van Vuuren's wacky tips, advice and anecdotes give audiences just the pick-me-up needed in these tough times.

Van Vuuren mimics what we know of life coaches and motivational speakers, but rather than telling us how to live our lives and all the things we should be doing and accomplishing with all this time on our hands in lockdown, he hilariously points out that we are in fact all doing OK — productivity be dammed.

Even if we haven't run marathons, finished projects or learnt something new with our time in lockdown, Van Vuuren reminds us that we're not so 'kak' after all. 

Making motivational speakers — those who have run marathons, completed projects, learnt new languages or skills and then make us mere mortals feel horrible for not being able to do those things — the 'butt' of his jokes, Van Vuuren gives us a little bit of reprieve from all the inspirational quotes and 'moving' speeches telling us to do more and to be more. 

He gives us honesty, hilarity, crazy faces, compromising positions, some odd 'breathing techniques' and blunt, 'un-inspirational' mantras that may leave you laughing at yourself — and whoever you choose to watch with at home — as you repeat the phrases back to yourself during the show.

And in doing so he makes us feel a lot better about ourselves where, as Van Vuuren does not fail to point out incessantly throughout the show, the proverbial 'motivational speakers' out there would rather have us feeling  depressed about the fact that we accomplished absolutely nothing in the last two weeks — other than getting out of bed and getting through your work day.

Offering a hilariously frank and surprisingly uplifting — for a show described as an 'anti-motivational comedy intervention' — evaluation of what its like to be alive in 2020/ 2021, Van Vuuren reminds us that we're the real heroes — the average, every day people who get up each morning and keep going.