The Rise of The Insanity League

Performances: Wed – Fri @ 8pm, Sat @ 5pm & 8pm, Sun @ 3pm
Tickets: R100, R120 & R160
Bookings at theatre box office (011) 511 1818 or online www.computicket.com

The Insanity League is a comedy movement, comprising comic actors Aaron McIlroy, Ben Voss and – in a welcome return to the stage after an absence of a decade – John van de Ruit. The trio have teamed up to deliver a sketch comedy show which pokes, provokes and tickles in all the right places – and they’ll be hitting the road from March 2013 for a nationwide tour.

The Insanity League was conceived early in 2012 after too much caffeine and not enough fresh air. An inspired conversation led to the frantic scribbling-down of comedy sketch ideas and a plan for nationwide domination was hatched. Between March and September 2013, The Insanity League will bring their more than slightly-left field ideas to theatres in Port Elizabeth, East London, Grahamstown, Durban, Hilton, Cape Town and Johannesburg. Their ‘Minute of Madness’ sketches are already broadcast regularly on East Coast Radio and Jacaranda 94.2FM.

The show promises to be more than just a random selection of sketches – the team is preparing a comic study on insanity unlike anything ever seen on the stage in South Africa before. An inspired set is taking shape around their manic ramblings, with Director Greig Coetzee carefully crafting the trio’s comic performances.

Aaron McIlroy is probably South Africa’s least-tauntable ginger. Provoke him at your peril – the master of scything punch lines and nuclear takedowns improvises quicker than a tenderpreneur in front of a Carte Blanche camera. McIlroy has previously earned his stripes and laughs by touring the country with killer comedy shows including Dof, The Golfer, The Loser, and @work.

Ben Voss is best known for dressing up in women’s clothing. His alter ego – Beauty Ramapelepele – is a fixture on the South African theatre circuit and a residency on East Coast Radio and Jacaranda FM earned him a loyal fan base comprised mostly of Bulls rugby fans and foot fetishists. Together with John van de Ruit he co-developed Green and Black Mamba which played to well over 29 people nationwide.

John van de Ruit rose to prominence with Voss in the Green and Black Mamba sketch theatre shows, developing an eager following in large villages and small towns, countrywide. He became marginally better-known after his Spud series proved that there were far more bored, literate people roaming the country than many ever thought possible. 4 books and 2 films later, he’s extricated himself from the couch and decided he’d really like to wear makeup again every day, for a while.

For the first time on a South African Stage, these 3 crazy men will collude in their attempt to make audiences laugh until they weep and as they are transported into a land of sheer madcap sketch comedy brilliance.

The Insanity League are:

Aaron McIlroy
Ben Voss
John van de Ruit
And
Greig Coetzee (Director)
David Gouldie (Production designer)
Mike Broderick (Stage/Lighting designer)

A Brief History

The Insanity League was formed in the afternoon of the 23rd January 2012 on Ben Voss’s veranda. Fathered by Voss, Aaron McIlroy and John van de Ruit, (but mothered by nobody), the league began as a caffeine inspired statement of intent to create a sketch comedy show that would stun audiences and careen between the comedic poles of sheer genius and rank stupidity. After a brief Irish river dance (insisted on by McIlroy) to seal the agreement, pens and pencils were called for, as it seemed to all present, including the host’s sheep dogs, that a watershed comedic brainstorm was imminent. When no stationery was found the inaugural meeting ended abruptly amidst snide mockery and threats of further gatherings.

The second meeting of The Insanity League took place a week later at the cave of McIlroy where his excellent cappuccinos inspired a five hour comedic brainstorm filling umpteen pages of a new black notebook with ideas as diverse as an arms’ dealer who only sells left hands, and a crooked policeman arresting a bemused motorist for not driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Following another marathon session, this time in van de Ruit’s motorhome a week later, the lively trio were unfortunately evicted from their residences because their loud brainstorming and cackling laughter upset domestic animals and small children and repeatedly tripped the electricity supply. (Though, for the latter, they may not have been responsible.) As such, all future Insanity League meetings have since taken place at an unmentionable coffee shop on the Durban beachfront where the manager has agreed to put up with their disturbances in return for free tickets to the premiere and a night with van de Ruit’s publisher. Week by week the black book has filled itself with a mounting treasure trove of sidesplitting ideas, a burgeoning cast of unwell characters, and enough crackling one liners to incur a government health warning.

So begins the rise of The Insanity League … a sketch comedy show like no other.