

JUST THE TICKET!

MY 50 YEARS IN SOUTH AFRICAN SHOW BUSINESS
Part Three - Milestones

Percy Tucker

Parts One and Two available on Smashwords

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission from the publisher. ©Percy Tucker 1997

For Graham Brian Dickason

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CONTENTS

Preface

Foreword

Introduction and Acknowledgements

Author's Note

Prologue: Exits

Part Three - Milestones

55.Crash Landings

56.Free at Last

57.The Russians Are Coming

58.Entr'acte: Twenty Years On

59.Troubled Waters

60.Rock Around the Clock

61.Full Circle

About the author

PREFACE

Attending an opening night performance in Cape Town without meeting Percy Tucker and Graham Dickason is unimaginable and rarely is there a ballet or opera event to which they do not bring their elegance and charm. Despite his many decades in theatre, Percy's regular attendance, unwavering support, enthusiasm and sheer delight in the industry that runs through his veins is remarkable. A chance conversation at one such opening performance at The Fugard Theatre led to the publication of this e-book version of Just The Ticket! An autobiography detailing Percy's involvement and support of the entertainment industry, the book also serves as an archival document, recording the complexities of a theatre industry during the apartheid years.

The original proofs were destroyed in a fire at the publishers which meant that despite many requests a reprint of the first edition was nigh impossible. As a theatre scholar and critic, Percy's book has been an invaluable resource to me and it seemed a fitting contribution to the South African archive to enable its reprint and accessibility in the digital age.

It gives me great joy to celebrate the occasion of Percy's 90th birthday with the release of this edition. While he may have "retired" from Computicket in 1994 his involvement in and support of the performing arts in South Africa has never wavered and a second volume of his autobiography would not be a slim one.

I hope you enjoy reading the remarkable story of the "boy from Benoni" who put the East Rand town on the map long before Charlize Theron became a household name.

Tracey Saunders

Cape Town

10th July 2018

FOREWORD

I am delighted, on behalf of our profession, to have the opportunity of expressing from the heart a few thoughts about a very special man. It is over thirty years since I, then a bumptious teenager, first met Percy Tucker. I arrived in Johannesburg just having signed pianist Russ Conway to tour South Africa and was taken to lunch by Percy. It was the beginning of a wonderful friendship. The book you are about to read chronicles the four decades, and more, of his life spent in our strange and exciting world. Percy has earned a very special place in the history of South African theatre and entertainment. He was the first true gentleman I met in the business and was always in a class of his own - a friend of the theatre - and the theatre is deeply indebted to him.

Percy, bitten by the theatre bug at a very early age, has dedicated his life to the performing arts. By creating first Show Service and then the gigantic Computicket network, he has had an enormous influence over the development of the full spectrum of entertainment in our country. Without an audience a performance is meaningless, and he enabled people to see anything they wanted to with ease. The importance of this contribution can never be exaggerated.

A book about the theatre is born long before the actual writing begins- in Percy's case it was when he was a young stage-struck theatregoer from Benoni and went on to become a fledgling ticket agent with one booking office in Jeppe Street, Johannesburg. He persevered where, so many others had failed until he controlled the ticketing of every theatrical, entertainment and sporting event staged in our country.

Percy Tucker is an extraordinary man who personifies everything a ticket agent ought ideally to be. His vision of the theatrical world is always clearsighted, true and steady. He is unbelievably generous, always scrupulously fair and understanding, treating everybody - stars and beginners- in exactly the same sensitive way, and he is entirely devoid of malice - unusual traits in our profession. A wonderful showman, he has inspired people to think that the theatre is not only important but indispensable to our lives. Self-effacing ('And what do you do, Mr Tucker?' 'Oh, I just sell the tickets'), always optimistic and supportive, generous with advice and encouragement, he has been a true patron of the arts.

How well I remember his kind remarks about some of my early abortive efforts, and his praise, so gratefully received, for later and better efforts remains etched in my memory. He has had a great influence on a great many careers and we have all benefited from his wise counsel. For many reasons, connected with finance, the changing structure of the theatre, and the times we now live in, we will not see his like again and more's the pity. His departure from Computicket marked the end of an era and left a huge gap. Things will never be the same again, but his legacy remains.

No one I know goes to the theatre more often than Percy Tucker, and indeed, the entertainment world has always seemed to nourish and elate him, and he has spent his life organising the chaos endemic to the theatre business. He has enormous integrity, an accolade given to many but deserved by few. His prodigious memory for productions and people is a source of wonder to me, and he himself soon became one of South Africa's best loved theatre personalities.

Always in the wings, alert to every need and every crisis, Percy Tucker has played a vital role in keeping entertainment alive, coping with the changes that both the years and our political developments have brought, and feeding the arts with his love and admiration. Today, with the decline both of funds and respect, the arts are more vulnerable than ever before and people like Percy Tucker are needed more than ever. He has served our industry with fanatical loyalty and is the nearest thing we have to a guru. Friends like Percy Tucker come only once in a lifetime. Read and enjoy this indispensable account of his - and our - world across five decades.

PIETER TOERIEN

Cape Town

1997

INTRODUCTIONS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There is an ancient belief that as long as you have good memories, old age will bring the pleasant experience of reliving them. Happily, I am quite a way from old age yet, but when it can no longer be kept at bay, I won't be short of memories- magic memories. In many ways I've lived a life of reflected glory, basking in the light of the many dozens of great performing artists I have met and worked with and, in several cases, with whom I've made lasting friendships. This enviable state of affairs came about through a love affair with the theatre, in all its forms, which began in my childhood and has continued undimmed ever since. Eventually this great passion led me to earn my living by the pleasurable means of devoting myself to my hobby.

From the moment I opened Show Service in 1954 and became what my horrified father called 'a ticket seller', work and pleasure became indivisible. I actually enjoyed slaving away, virtually round the clock, for some forty years before reluctantly having to concede, in 1994, that I'd reached the age of retirement. The work was hard and not, of course, without difficulties, dramas and disappointments, but these were far outweighed by the constant challenge and excitement of keeping the arts alive in our complex, constantly changing, often troubled, but always vibrant culture. Nobody, in my view, lives a totally charmed life, but I've come pretty close, blessed as I've been by good fortune.

None of this, however, makes a good reason to tell my story, and when it was suggested that I write my autobiography, my first reaction was to think, 'Who on earth would be interested in the life of a stage-struck small-town boy, who followed a dream and found a niche in the confines of a relatively small entertainment industry?'

Forced, however, to give the matter some thought, I realised that my story is the story of six decades of entertainment in South Africa in general, and Johannesburg in particular. Looking back, it is astounding how many gifted artists of international repute have visited these shores, through good times and bad, during my own lifetime, bringing pleasure and enrichment to hundreds of thousands of South Africans, many of whom might never otherwise have had the opportunity to see and hear them perform.

Then, too, I've watched homegrown talent develop and prosper, finding fame both here and overseas, and seen the number of theatre buildings grow to house the ambitions of our own producers, directors and actors. I've marvelled at the courage of those who fought the iniquitous colour bar, using the universal language of drama as a weapon, and been awestruck by the powerful and uninhibited gifts of black performers, struggling to make their voices heard in a land which denied them access to its privilege.

Delving into the archives, I realised that my own life encompasses a remarkable pageant of people, places and events which deserve a mention in our recorded history. I realised, too, that despite the handful of memoirs and histories of individual lives and institutions, no book has been published that gives an overview of the last sixty years of entertainment in this country.

And, on a more frivolous and egocentric note, why not share some of my more amusing and glamorous memories as a pleasant reminder of things past for the older generation and, hopefully, a fascinating journey into their parents' and grandparents' world for the young?

And so, I invite you to journey back and forth with me over the years.....

This book would never have seen the light of day without the unstinting help of a great many people. It is, alas, impossible for me to mention everyone by name but there are several debts of gratitude that cannot go unrecorded.

To Patric van Blerk must go the credit for instigating the project by introducing me to Nicholas Combrinck of Jonathan Ball Publishers. It is thanks to Nicholas' persuasion, encouragement and commitment that the book became a reality.

My thanks to Clive Hirschhorn for suggesting that I bring Robyn Karney from London to work with me on the book. Herself a former South African who began her working life in the Johannesburg theatre, and subsequently a writer and editor, Robyn gave up a year of her life to apply her expertise to guiding me through the morass of memories and piles of paper - a task which she originally thought would take a little over six weeks! For once she was wrong. It's impossible to express my appreciation of such dedication.

In correcting and polishing the text, my editor Pat Tucker (no relation) gave her time, her encouragement, her experience and, most importantly, her skill, well beyond the call of duty. We were extremely fortunate to have her services.

Countless other people gave of their time and effort to answering queries, confirming facts and sharing memories. Again, I cannot list all of them, and I beg the understanding of anybody who has grounds to feel excluded. However, in no particular order, I must record the. help given by Malcolm Hacksley, Jeremy Fogg and Ann Torlesse of the National English Literary Museum (NELM) in Grahamstown where my research began. It is an inspirational institution and the unstinting courtesy of the staff will be long remembered. Thanks too, to Linda Boswell, Marius Basson and Carol Leigh of the African Studies Library, Johannesburg, for their endless co-operation, to archivist Edna Beukes at the Civic Theatre, Marie Human of Bailey's African Archives, Louana Brewis of the National Archives in Pretoria, and Clive Chipkin, whose book Johannesburg Style was a rich source.

Prominent among those who allowed me to drive them mad in my quest for accurate facts were the ever-helpful Rita Ehlers, Peter Terry and Jaco van der Westhuizen at PACT Drama, Johan Mare and Christine Keitz at PACT Opera, and Jonathan Hurwitz of PACT Ballet. I also tormented Joan Brickhill, Eghard van der Hoven, Michal Grobbelaar, Mannie Manim and Des and Dawn Lindberg, as well as several former colleagues from Computicket, notably Aubrey Louw, Peter Campbell and Iona Myburgh.

Anthony Farmer was a mine of information and memories, as were Hazel and Sam Feldman, Marilyn Lurie and Kay Blythe of Showtime International, and Gail Jaffit-Leibman and her sister Lorraine Conidaris. I owe a very special 'thank you' to the incomparable Percy Baneshik and to my dear friend and mentor Leonard Schach who, sadly, did not live to see the finished product.

The thorny path to completion was also made easier by Henry Ascar, who generously loaned me his archival material, Peter Feldman of The Star, Brian Brooke, Michael Brooke, Fiona Fraser, Olive King, Vanessa Cooke, Philip Morrall, Robert Burring of SAMRO, the staff of the Vita Awards office, Bob Courtney, John Cowen, Kathy Brookes of Museum Africa, Wendy de la Harpe, Mike Dunk, Hilton Morby-Smith, Shirley Firth, Irene Frangs, Ruth Oppenheim, John Kani, Nielle Roux, Butch Evans, June Hern, Bryan Hill, Michael Hobson, Shelagh Holliday, Michael McCabe, Michael McGovern, Richard Loring, Judy Page, Kerry Jordan, Michael Lovegrove, Patrick Mynhardt, Verity Lloyd, Michael Maxwell, Philip McDonald, Lynette Marais, Geoffrey Neimann, Gertie Awerbuch, Andre Pieterse, Dennis Reinecke, John Roos, Charles Stodel, Di Sparkes, Lotte Spider, Alan Swerdlow, Brian Thomas, Louis van Niekerk, Jean-Claude Laurent of the State Theatre, John Whiteley, Graham Wright, Jenifer Williams and Sun City's splendid photographer Lewis Horwitz.

In Cape Town, Basil Rubin was infinitely helpful, as were CAPAB archivist Hope Malan, Marilyn Holloway of CAPAB Ballet, Rodney Phillips at the Baxter Theatre, Ronnie Quibell, Robert Kirby, Joan Manners and, of course, my friend Pieter Toerien. Special thanks to Joy Wildman for allowing me to read her unpublished memoirs of Taubie Kushlick, and to Emmanuel Zabar who diligently helped me to file my massive collection of memorabilia.

Last, but certainly not least, I must express my gratitude to photographer Ruphin Coudyzer for making his superb work available to me and to Francine Blum of Jonathan Ball Publishers for her help and interest.

Finally, without the loyalty and devotion of my staff at Show Service and Computicket, my dreams and ambitions would never have come to fruition. They know who they are, and I will be forever grateful to them. I mean no disrespect to the others when I single out in particular Sheila Thomas, Joan Manners, Martie Geerdts, Glynnis Davies, Molly Meredith, Rene Hodkinson, Isabel Mendoza, Martie Bettini, Florence Msimango, Alice Nawrattel, Tommy Mahlobogoane, Cynthia Jurrius, Mary Harding, Mavis Oliver, Rose Ryder, Mary Rise borough, Cheryl van Doorn, Graydon Fry, and a special thank you to Maria Faria. Rina Minnaar, Eddie Edwards, Pearl Niemach, Dan Liebenberg and Peggy Henriques who are, alas, no longer with us, deserve to be remembered. This book doesn't pretend to be an exhaustive listing of every theatrical event that ever happened here- that would take several volumes - but I hope that the information will prove useful to future historians, and the content interesting and entertaining to present readers.

On the 26 April 1997, just prior to the publication of this book, Brian Brooke, the last of the great South African actor/director/managers passed away. His memory will live on in these pages.

PERCY TUCKER

Johannesburg

1997
AUTHOR'S NOTE

Aside from my own experience and memories, the major source of information for this book has been my substantial archive of personal and business letters and documents, mementoes, photographs, diaries, theatre, programmes and press clippings collected over my lifetime.

The facts have been supplemented or verified by the records of theatrical managements, cinema and sports personnel, critics and journalists, library news archives and, of course, former colleagues.

In addition, I consulted the following books:

  * Beginners Please, Patricia Storrar, Children's Theatre, 1968

  * Broadway's Greatest Musicals, Abe Laufe, David & Charles, 1969

  * But the Melody Lingers On, Malcolm Woolfson, Perskor, 1992

  * Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Margaret Webster, Alfred A Knopf, 1972

  * International Theatre Annual No 3, ed. Harold Hobson, John Calder, 1953

  * Johannesburg Style, Clive Chipkin, David Philip, 1993

  * My Own Personal Star, Brian Brooke, Limelight Press, 1978

  * My Story, Harry M. Miller, MacMillan Australia, 1983

  * Stage by Stage, Donald Inskip, Human & Rousseau, 1977

  * The Best of Company, Pat Schwartz, Ad Donker, 1988

  * The Boys, Christopher Fitz-Simon, Nick Hern Books, 1994

  * The Fighters, Chris Greyvenstein, Don Nelson, 1981

  * The History of Ballet in South Africa, Marina Grut, Human & Rousseau, 1981

  * The Long Road, Malcolm Woolfson, Napac, 1986

  * The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, ed. Phyllis Hartnoll, Oxford Press, 1993

  * The Penguin Encyclopaedia of Popular Music, ed. Donald Clarke, Penguin Books, 1989

  * They Built a Theatre, Arthur and Anna Romain Hoffman, Ad Donker, 1980

PROLOGUE: EXITS

At 11.30 a.m. on 14 August 1994, sporting an uncharacteristically colourful waistcoat made in London for the occasion, I made my way to the Johannesburg Civic Theatre. The new management of Computicket were throwing a farewell party for me, the last of a series of such gatherings at which I had taken leave of my staff and the representatives of theatre managements in Cape Town and Durban. It was difficult to believe that two days later, on 16 August, I would be officially retired - forty years to the day since I had started my career with the opening of Show Service.

I had no idea what form the party would take, other than the provision of a buffet lunch during which I would see friends and colleagues with whom I had spent my working life. I knew that Mike Egan, the CEO of Interleisure, Computicket's parent company, would say a few words, and that I would have to reply, but I was totally unprepared for what actually awaited me.

The foyer of the Civic was hung with boards recording the history of my years in show business, plus hundreds of photographs of me with the often-glittering international stars who had visited here: Marlene Dietrich, Trini Lopez, Victoria de los Angeles, Roger Moore, Margot Fonteyn, Liza Minnelli, Elton John, and dozens of others. Over a podium hung a large banner of farewell greetings from my staff; on the podium, two grand pianos faced each other; in the centre of it stood a waiting microphone.

The buffet tables were bedecked with flowers, and well-known show tunes played through the speakers as I chatted to Mike Egan, to my Operations Director and rock-like second-in-command for twenty-eight years, Aubrey Louw, and my loyal, stalwart and funny Head of Information, Iona Myburgh, with whom I had fought and laughed for thirty-four years.

Despatched to the doors to greet the guests, I was astonished by the size of the crowd of luminaries who poured in. The first lady of South African musical comedy, Joan Brickhill, blonde and beautiful as ever, 3 arrived with Ian von Memerty and Bryan Schimmel the piano-playing stars of A Handful of Keys; producers Des and Dawn Lindberg came, followed by impresario and producer Pieter Toerien and my cousin, the high-profile impresario Hazel Feldman, with her father, my uncle Joe Goldstein; the elegant Public Relations executive Wilma Lawson Turnbull, director and designer Anthony Farmer, former Mayor Sam Moss, and actor-singer Richard Loring. Melanie Millin-Moore, Sol Kerzner's public relations supremo came, as did actor and executive director of the Market Theatre, John Kani and actor-producer Shirley Firth, actor, director and TV producer Bobby Heaney, actors Michael McGovern and Annabel Linder, as well as PACT Ballet's Dawn Weller and Martin Raistrick, Alan Joseph, then chief executive of the Civic, and my close companion Graham Dickason.

And that was just the start. A good hour later I'd been greeted - and often hugged and kissed- by five hundred people. I was immeasurably moved that the eighty-five-year-old former actor-manager Brian Brooke, as handsome and urbane as ever, and his gracious wife Petrina Fry had made the journey from their farm, and by the appearance of Percy Baneshik, the best-known and most knowledgeable of South Africa's theatre critics.

After lunch, critic and columnist Barry Range, a forceful, witty and articulate Master of Ceremonies, made a wonderful speech and announced that a succession of people would now pay tribute to my achievements. Since I prefer to hide behind the limelight of others, what followed embarrassed me but, I must admit, also filled me with a warm glow of pride.

I am a very emotional man and the honours that were showered on me brought me to the verge of tears that needed all my willpower to control when, some three-and-a-half hours later, I had to acknowledge them. Ian von Memerty and Bryan Schimmel sang songs for me, as did Richard Loring, Des and Dawn Lindberg, and the remarkable Joan Brickhill, whose rendition of what might have been my own signature tune, There's No Business Like Show Business, gave the patient crowd the excitement of a first night.

Councillor Cecil Bass, on behalf of the Johannesburg Civic Theatre Foundation, did me the great honour of making me a Patron of the Civic; Market Theatre chairman Grahame Lindop ended his deft and gracious address by making me the first ever Friend of the Market Theatre with tickets for all the Market shows for the rest of my life; and many further presentations and speeches were made - by former executive director of the Civic Theatre, Michal Grobbelaar and by Sun International's Michael Lovegrove; by actor Patrick Mynhardt and radio personality Paddy O'Byrne; and, of course, by Mike Egan, who 4 conferred on me the status of the first and only Patron of the organisation I had founded. There were tributes on a very personal note, too, such as that from Iona Myburgh who made a presentation on behalf of the Computicket staff, some two hundred and fifty of them.

I reflected that there is, indeed, no business like show business.

Recollecting this momentous occasion in tranquillity, what really surprised me that afternoon was to learn that I was variously and widely perceived as 'Mr Show Biz', 'the father confessor to the profession' and a 'doctor' with the cure for all box-office ailments- this from Michal Grobbelaar, who, in a fulsome flight of fancy, seemed to think that in opening up what he called 'a new sphere of marketing for live theatre', I had single-handedly made the theatre a going concern. And for the young Barry Ronge, sitting in the Chesa Coffee Bar back in the Sixties and watching the comings and goings across the arcade, Show Service had been 'a tiny little window into a large and fabulous world'.

Well, it was a large and fabulous world, and one that I entered with no thought other than to follow my boyhood dream of working within the theatrical profession. Everything I did sprang from my passionate desire to see the theatre flourish and its audiences grow, and I foresaw none of the results. I was just, as I told a TV interviewer, 'a boy from Benoni who got tired of standing in queues'.

At home, the party over, I looked back on the rich harvest I had reaped from the seeds that were sown in my youth, and couldn't help wondering what my parents, Ray and Harry Tucker, and my maternal grandparents, Mannie and Malka Goldstein, would have made of it all. I couldn't get them out of my mind.
PART THREE

MILESTONES

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

CRASH LANDINGS

As the turbulent Eighties entered their last year, it was evident from my daily figures at Computicket that the core audience for whom theatregoing was once a way of life, had shrunk substantially. Producers were finding it increasingly difficult to make a living from anything but blockbuster hits, though the performing arts councils were protected by subsidy and could afford to carry on with their often-ambitious programmes. Despite these difficulties, 1989 brought some very interesting theatre and some novel entertainment. It also brought two major upheavals at Computicket.

The first of these was that we were given notice that the building in which we were housed was to be demolished, necessitating a move. Since the Post Office had insufficient data lines in suburban areas to service our operation, we had to remain close to our current premises, and were fortunate to find suitable spaces at 158 Main Street in the same building as Ster-Kinekor. It was a massive undertaking, and the planning was continuous and intensive until the move, which began on the afternoon of Saturday, 29 April- a date chosen to coincide with a long weekend, thereby giving us until Monday night to get ourselves in order before the week's business commenced.

All the members of staff involved in the move were as aware as I was of the need to have not only the normal office equipment and documents in place, but also the computers re-installed and functioning by the Monday night deadline. The fact that we knew the entire leisure industry was dependent on our system spurred us to a marathon effort, and I shan't ever forget the dedication of the engineering and computing staff who worked virtually non-stop alongside Peter Campbell, Aubrey and me throughout the long weekend. The Post Office technicians, too, put in countless hours and were extremely helpful, and on Tuesday, 2 May it was business as usual in our new home.

Fred Abrahamse's novel production of A Midsummer Night's Dream which had originated in Cape Town in 1987 was brought to the Market jointly by the Market, the Baxter and the Handspring Puppet Company. The novelty lay in the imaginative use of puppets, inhabiting a fantasy world in which they interacted with Shakespeare's characters, among whom were Clare Stopford, Fiona Ramsay, Neil McCarthy, David Butler, Jennie Reznek, Robert Finlayson and Gaynor Young. They all gave lovely performances.

This was one of three Shakespeare productions which, unusually, were staged within a short time of each other. At the Alexander, Dieter Reible directed Die Storm (The Tempest) for PACT's Afrikaans company, starring Louis van Niekerk as Prospero, André Odendaal as Ariel and Peter Se-Puma as Caliban, while, for the English company, François Swart directed As You Like It with Fiona Ramsay and Jeremy Crutchley as Rosalind and Orlando.

A coda to the Shakespeare feast was the film of Janet Suzman's Othello, which she'd made for British television during the run of the play and which was shown Upstairs at the Market during a very cold August. I was invited to the preview, at which Janet (who flew down from Zimbabwe where she was filming A Dry White Season), was present, and which was held on a Sunday in the unheated main theatre. We all froze to death, wrapping scarves around our legs in an effort to keep warm.

The first of the Market's highlights was Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prizewinning play, Driving Miss Daisy, in which Annabel Linder proved her versatility as the seventy-two-year-old (ageing to ninety-seven in the course of the action) Miss Daisy, a Jewish woman in Alabama. Playing opposite her as Hoke, her faithful chauffeur and friend, was John Kani. As one critic wrote of Janice Honeyman's production, it was 'worth the drive from anywhere ... a sheer delight'.

Pieter-Dirk Uys wrote the opening production for the newly refurbished Laager. Just Like Home was directed by Lynne Maree and starred Shaleen Surtie-Richards as a coloured exile in Britain, now homesick and about to return to the Cape.

A second new Uys play, Scorched Earth, brought Margaret Inglis, for some years resident in London, back to the Johannesburg stage as the matriarch Lady Deborah, gathering together her internationally scattered family to fight the expropriation of her land for inclusion in a proposed homeland. Fiona Ramsay and Val Donald-Bell co-starred with Peggy in what should have been a thrilling event, but which barely attracted audiences. Just Like Home, however, did, and was brought back for a second season.

Athol Fugard's absorbing new play, My Children! My Africa! opened in June, and also warranted a re-run later in the year. It was directed by Athol with John Kani, Rapulana Seiphemo and Kathy-Jo Ross (Annabel Linder's daughter by her first husband, Clive Parnell).

PACT's administrative head, Lynette Marais, who, back in her acting days had appeared with Janice Honeyman in Andre Brink's Kinkels in die Kabel during the 1970s, commissioned Janice to adapt and direct Charles Dickens' Hard Times for the Windybrow. As the year's setwork, it was primarily staged for school audiences, but the imaginative production, played by a strong cast headed by Michael McCabe, Susan Danford and Robert Whitehead, was so successful that the public clamoured for seats and additional performances were hastily scheduled.

Lynette then announced her resignation from the position she had held since 1982 in order to take her commitment and expertise to Grahamstown where she became the director of the Festival, presiding over its growth into the massive cultural event it has become. And it was in this year, too, that Computicket was asked to set up a system at Grahamstown whereby the terminals could stay open late until every show in the main festival was in. By July, we had the Grahamstown Festival on line from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week.

Meanwhile, other notable productions from PACT during the year included a revival of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes, directed by Terrence Shank with Dorothy Ann Gould as Regina Giddens; a fascinating interpretation of Genet's The Blacks by Dieter Reible with Peter Se-Puma, Soli Philander and Bill Curry; and Deon Opperman's Stille Nag, directed by the author at the Adcock-Ingram Theatre.

Stille Nag dealt head-on with contemporary South African issues through the portrayal of an Afrikaans family, one of whose three sons is an AWB member, another a left-wing activist and the third a simpleminded youth who spirals into panic at any suggestion of violence. The play saw Eghard van der Hoven, back on the stage after many years, as the father, Wilna Snyman as the mother who watches her family disintegrate, and a young actress named Embeth Davidtz, who had played Shakespeare's Juliet at Maynardville in 1987, as the right-winger's wife. It was the first time I had seen this talented newcomer who, the following year, would co-star in a new two-hander by Reza de Wet called A Worm in the Bud. It was obvious that Embeth had a future, which she went on to find in Hollywood after distinguishing herself as the maltreated maidservant in the film of Schindler's List.

PACT Ballet presented La Sylphide and Les Rendezvous in February, with Catherine Burnett at her most exquisite in the former; in May the company staged three one-act ballets, La Bayadere, Suite Temptation and Sparante, and September brought the staging of Balanchine's classical masterpiece Ballet Imperial, plus the South African premiere of two Choo San Goh works, Configurations and Unknown Territory.

The highlights of the PACT opera year were Wagner's Lohengrin and Donizetti 's Maria Stuarda. The former, directed by Michael Rennison with Waiter Donati and Marita Napier, was a collaboration with PACOFS, NAPAC, and CAPAB. Neels Hansen's absolutely stunning production of the rarely performed Donizetti was sung by Denia Mazzola as Maria and Sally Presant as Queen Elizabeth I. Meanwhile, Gregorio Fiasconaro's production of La Traviata for CAPAB at the Nico Malan created an unprecedented rush for tickets when Jenny Drivala (alternating with Rikie Venter) came to sing Violetta opposite Gerhard le Roux's Alfredo (Sidwill Hartman alternating).

The spotlight shone on NAPAC when they mounted a unique 'first' - a trilogy of Broadway musicals played in repertory and marketed collectively as The Trilogy. Geoffrey Sutherland directed Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, Janice Honeyman tackled Leonard Bernstein's Candide, and Terrence Shank had charge of the most commercial of the three, Sweet Charity. On the final day of the season, all three musicals were presented as a one-day package, starting with Candide in the morning, and I joined musicals enthusiasts from all over the country who went off to Durban for this exciting event.

In September, Moira Blumenthal, in association with NAPAC, brought the company's Vita Award-winning production of March of the Falsettos to the Adcock-Ingram. This American musical play by William Finn, described as 'an engagingly wry hi-tech operetta', was directed by the remarkably busy Terrence Shank with Drummond Marais, Joseph Clark, Jonathan Taylor, Richard-Mark Rubin and Joanna Weinberg. It concerned a Jewish family- a son, his father and the man his father falls in love with. It was a lot of fun and was done again at the 1991 Grahamstown Festival, after which it toured in tandem with its companion piece, Falsettoland.

The Black Sun in Berea spewed forth a massive number of new works and eventually hit the jackpot with Susan Pam's Curl Up and Dye. Directed by Lucille Gillwald with the author, Val Donald-Bell, Nandi Nyembe and Lillian Dube, the play (set in a seedy Joubert Park hairdressing salon), went on to become a hit of the Grahamstown festival, played several repeat seasons at the Market, one at the Andre Huguenet, went to the Edinburgh Festival and enjoyed a run on the London Fringe. It was no surprise that, among the several awards it picked up, one was for best new South African play of the year.

In comparison with previous years, there was a dearth of popular musical entertainment. Virtually no new artists were coming to Sun City, though the Super bowl did welcome a successful return visit from Laura Branigan, and managed to engage the dynamic, award-winning Irene Cara, whose smash-hit singles included 'Out Here on My Own' from the movie Fame and 'What a Feeling' from Flashdance. However, since the 1988 Human Rights Concert in Harare for which Computicket had handled the booking, international artists were increasingly accepting engagements in other neighbouring African countries. In March we booked for UB40 at the Botswana National Stadium in Gaborone while, in July, we sold some 35 000 tickets for Eric Clapton and Joan Armatrading, on the same bill, at the Somhlolo National Stadium in Swaziland. Once again, I was struck by the contradiction that one could freely buy the records of these artists in South Africa, and that ninety per cent of their audiences were South Africans, yet the boycott of live performance within our borders prevailed. What astounded me is that, when I talked to several of these performers, they didn't appear to have a clue as to what the boycott was actually about.

The fans, meanwhile, would put up with much inconvenience to see their favourites and, since inconvenience was frequently in the form of delays at the border, some ticket holders were too late for the concert and thought nothing of asking us for their money back. Which is why, for these particular events, the words 'No Refunds' were boldly printed on the tickets, back and front.

Locally, fans could see Ladysmith Black Mambazo, now internationally known through the 'Graceland' album, with guest artist Thandi Klaasen, in seasons at - whoever would have thought it - the Pretoria State Drama Theatre and the Alexander. And Bertha Egnos launched Ipi-Tombi II, the NOW Generation, which she directed with choreography by Lynton Burns. The show boasted seventeen new songs by Gail Lakier, plus the giant hits of the fifteen-year-old original, 'Mama Tembu's Wedding' and the title number, and brought the sensational sounds of Azumah to the stage. The venue for the show was the former Victory cinema, for years run by Italo Bernicchi as a showcase for old movies, and now converted and refurbished as a theatre. Once again, Anthony Farmer's talents were responsible for the transformation of the building, as well as for the show's sets. Ipi-Tombi II ran for eight months.

Another new theatre came into being later in the year when Richard Loring opened The Sound Stage in Midrand on 11 October. I wasn't alone in thinking Richard had taken leave of his senses by embarking on a venture in what seemed a rather remote location, but he had done his homework and we were proved wrong. Richard directed the opening show, We'll Meet Again, the first of many sensational successes.

Starring Dianne Chandler, John Lesley and a chorus which, in the spirit of the show, was billed as the Dad's Army Chorus, We'll Meet Again drew its inspiration from Vera Lynn's repertoire of World War II songs and was marvellously evocative. Richard had the innovative idea of selling RIO tickets in the form of a British wartime ration card, which customers could exchange in the theatre canteen for a very English plate of sausage and mash with mushy peas plus accompaniments. The older generation flocked and sat through the nostalgia with tears in their eyes, but the happy surprise was the large number of youngsters who were drawn to the show, which returned for season after season.

My friend Taubie, who was nothing if not persistent, also trod familiar ground once more. Early in the year she had invited Jacques Brel's widow to the Oude Libertas Theatre in Stellenbosch to see one of her many Brel shows. Suitably impressed, Madame Brel offered Taubie the rights to make the definitive video of her late husband's work but, to take up the offer, Taubie needed a suitable venue. The upshot was the establishment of Kushlicks Theatre Restaurant at the Constantia Centre, Rosebank, Johannesburg.

We the faithful gathered there on 5 September for the opening performance of A Tribute to the Words and Music of Brel with Elsabé Zietsman, Brel regular Ferdie Uphof and Tsidii Leloka, who hailed from Lesotho and had a powerful and expressive voice. At long last Graham and I were allowed to remain at the ringside table to which we were ushered in this room which Taubie had decided to decorate in black - black tables, black walls, black stage, black costumes. The show's format was that of a slick cabaret, in which Taubie, moving with the times, had Tsidii singing 'If We Only Have Love' in Sotho and English.

The show was controversial and some of the critics panned it mercilessly. In November, Taubie announced that it would revert to a more traditional format for the last weeks of the run, with Michelle Hill and the familiar Ann Hamblin replacing Zietsman and Leloka. At the final performance on 3 December, Taubie made a speech in which she said she was still auditioning for the right cast for a video. Sadly, not only did the video never materialise, but the show proved to be her last production, ending her career with what Percy Baneshik called 'her theatrical obsession', and what I saw as her lasting love affair with the words and music of Jacques Brel.

Hazel Feldman, the only woman on the board of Sun International, began talking to the ANC about the cultural boycott, a step which led her into a major dispute with the Bophuthatswana government and resulted in President Mangope forbidding her presence in the homeland. Although the board of Sun International said they couldn't guarantee her safety, Hazel totally ignored the ban and came up with the biggest novelty attraction of the year, The Chippendales.

The arrival of ten of America's most stunning specimens of male physical beauty at the Galaxy in September had its genesis in a joke on Hazel's birthday the previous year. Her staff had plastered the walls of her office with pin-up pics of the Chippendales and suggested it was high time that, after supplying such an abundance of 'tits 'n' feathers' for the guys, she should do something for the girls. Hazel, who was searching wildly for new ideas to get the crowds to Sun City, took the joke seriously and flew to the States to talk the owner of the Chippendale clubs, venues which were the women's answer to the Playboy clubs, albeit on a smaller scale. He was happy to export a team of his hunky entertainers, the first time he'd done so, and booking opened at Computicket in August. The rush to the box office was astounding, and by the time the show opened, the five-week season was entirely sold out.

The Chippendales, who appeared never to have heard of South Africa, let alone the boycott, unleashed a late twentieth-century phenomenon. Their show featured a bevy of boy dancers, and a team of bare-chested but bow-tied waiters to serve drinks. The whole ensemble was an absolute riot. The boys knew every trick of the come-on trade and their rippling torsos brought swoons and screams of delight from fans of both sexes, who showed their appreciation by depositing cash in little cups attached to their G-strings. To call the entertainment basic is an understatement, but they had found the secret of relaxing their audiences, who lost all their inhibitions.

The Galaxy season played to mixed-sex audiences, although women tended to outnumber men. In the States, the boys played only to women, and, due to the demand, a special matinee was slotted in at the Super bowl for women only. The tickets sold out within an hour to four and- a-half thousand fans, aged from sixteen to sixty, who patronised the occasion and had the time of their lives. They also fell for the post-show sales of Chippendale photographs, calendars and magazines, which the boys sold themselves, charging outrageous prices - and getting them.

From the moment booking opened, Hazel could see she was on to a winner. Before the Chippendales had even arrived, she had negotiated a return visit for 1990, playing the Superbowl- transformed into a Las Vegas-style supper club for the season - and going on to Wild Coast Sun (much to the manager's disapproval) and Pieter Toerien's Theatre on the Bay. This second tour was a mega-success, with the boys playing to capacity audiences for several months.

Rather less of a success story for Sun City was the introduction of the Sun City Express, a train service which, it was hoped, would increase the number of day visitors. In the event, it was a rare failure among the resort's ideas. It had been launched with a tremendous public relations fanfare in the summer, with an inaugural journey that was given a send-off by bands and during which passengers were treated to champagne and all the trimmings.

As a regular mode of transport, however, it was fairly disastrous. The trains were regular suburban commuter trains, cramped and uncomfortable, and took two hours longer than the bus to reach Sun City. The return journeys were a nightmare, arriving in Johannesburg at dawn, often filled with rowdy and drunken passengers, and there were many complaints to both Computicket and Sun City. The service staggered on unhappily for a few years and gradually dwindled away.

Rex Garner directed Murder on the Nile, Toerien's annual Agatha Christie, with a cast that included himself, Jeremy Crutchley and Janet du Plessis, at the Andre Huguenet. This was followed by best-selling novelist Jeffrey Archer's first play, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, with Rex and Diane Appleby. Pieter then brought back his hit of eight years earlier, Tom Lehrer's Tom Foolery, this time utilising the collective talents of Richard Loring, Malcolm Terrey, Mark Richardson and Celeste Litkie. They were directed by Jimmy Bell, with Kevin Feather in charge of the musical end. Terrey amazed audiences with his delivery of The Elements to the famous Gilbert & Sullivan 'speedwobble'.

After the run of Tom Foolery Malcolm Terrey, who was attracting a substantial following, joined Errol Ross in a return production of Who Goes Bare for Pieter while, at the Leonard Rayne, Lena Farugia starred in We and Them, a two-hander about the Duchess of Windsor which she had written herself. Set in the mid-Seventies, two years after the Duke's death, the play switched back and forth in time, calling upon its author to give a remarkably skilful performance, which she did, with the support of Chris Weare.

During October, Pieter Toerien, PACT and the Market each opened a new production in the same week. The three otherwise very different plays shared, by a remarkable coincidence, related themes involving the machinations of spies, politics and superpowers. Pieter kicked off at the Alhambra on 1 October with David Henry Hwang's unusual, and highly theatrical tale of love and treachery, M. Butterfly, starring Sean Taylor and Jeremy Crutchley directed by Robert Whitehead; PACT staged Tom Stoppard's brainteaser Hapgood at the Alexander directed by Bobby Heaney with Fiona Ramsay, Michael McCabe, James Borthwick and Graham Hopkins, which dealt with an MI5 spy ring; and, on 3 October, A Walk in the Woods opened at the Market.

Written by Lee Blessing, A Walk in the Woods was directed by Leonard Schach, whose penultimate Johannesburg production this would turn out to be. Cast with the heavyweight duo of Michael Atkinson and Michael McGovern, this absorbing play was about the principal arms negotiators behind the East-West detente. It revealed the human faces and concerns of the men behind the political mask and brought electrifying performances from the two Michaels.

It was a month of exceptional quality at the Market where, at the Upstairs, Lanford Wilson's mesmerisingly powerful American drama Burn This, an intense, painful and sometimes funny love story, was exceptionally well-acted by Danny Keogh, Terry Norton, Russel Savadier and Neil McCarthy, under Clare Stopford's direction. For me, however, October in general, and the opening night of A Walk in the Woods in particular, remains engraved on my memory as the time of Computicket's worst ever crisis.

As I was walking out of the Market after the performance, my pager went off with an urgent summons to go to our computer room where, to my horror, human error had resulted in a failure of the central memory discs which had crashed, eliminating every booking for every show, all over the country, which had been recorded during that day. Senior staff were working frantically to rectify the situation, but by 3 a.m. it was obvious that we couldn't possibly open for normal business by morning, and the decision was made to remain closed on 4 October.

This was the first time in eighteen years that so major a disaster had befallen us, and it's difficult to describe the consequences. In essence, the crash meant that we had no records of which seats had or hadn't been either booked or sold in advance on 3 October, and therefore no record of what was or wasn't still available. The computer team worked non-stop to recover the information, and I had to exercise unprecedented ingenuity to cope with the clients in the face of this massive problem. Aubrey had the same problem with the buses, Peter Campbell who had to try and rectify the accounts, and senior staff all over the country worked twenty hours a day, attempting to recover information, while liaising with the theatres and finding a way to accommodate the public when the inevitable seating problems revealed themselves on the night of a performance.

The managements, most particularly Martin Raistrick of PACT Ballet and all the staff at the State Theatre, were remarkably co-operative. When I wasn't in my office, I was rushing to and from various venues nightly to help reseat the patrons, while Cape Town manager June Sterling coped there, and Rene Hodgkinson and Cheryl van Doom did likewise in Durban. The Durban Tattoo was the victim of the only mess that couldn't be fully resolved because the sheer weight of numbers made it impossible to reseat everybody satisfactorily.

From the public's point of view, the ongoing nightmare was barely noticed, and we were immensely proud of the discretion with which we'd handled the crisis. For me it was a double nightmare, because I was forced to postpone a trip to London and New York, departing on 5 October. Graham waited patiently for me in London, but I never made it. For the first and last time in my life I had no choice but to work on the Jewish Day of Atonement. I closed the door of my office and fasted as usual while continuing to deal with the difficulties. I finally left for New York on 27 October, still in a state of shock after living through the organisational hell of what would be forever remembered as The Crash. Among the other things we did in New York was to join dozens of South African visitors and expats at the Gershwin Theatre for the opening night of Louis Burke and Joan Brickhill's Broadway production of Meet Me in St Louis.

Back home, we went to the openings of the PACT pantomime (Jack and the Beanstalk, again a Janice Honeyman production), and, at the State Theatre, the annual musical. Only three of the performing arts councils collaborated this year (CAPAB was missing), to present Lerner and Loewe's Arthurian romance, Camelot, starring Michael Richard, Kate Normington and Robert Finlayson, directed by François Swart.

December marked the tenth anniversary of Sun City, which was celebrated with a banquet attended by everybody who was anybody in the media and entertainment world, as well as the social register. It was a wonderful occasion, where I was delighted to be seated at the same table as Taubie and Kushy. A new extravaganza, called Celebration, opened and, of course, the Million Dollar Golf became part of the celebratory atmosphere. Some of the regular names were missing, their places taken by first-time Sun City competitors (Sandy Lyle, Andy Bean, Tim Simpson, Scott Hoch), and the $1 000 000 first prize was captured by South African David Frost, winning by three shots from Scott Hoch.

During the golf tournament we heard the shocking news that Gaynor Young, understudying Kate Normington in Camelot had turned the wrong way after a big production number and had fallen almost the equivalent of three stories through a gap in the stage to crash amidst the electrical cables in a vast space at the bottom. Badly injured and in a coma, she wasn't expected to live. The talented young actress eventually, and miraculously, recovered, although with only partial sight and hearing, and impaired mobility. In 1994, directed by Maralin Vanrenen at the Civic Theatre, Gaynor told her story in a one-woman show called My Plunge to Fame, an inspiring testament to her courage.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

FREE AT LAST

Forty years of repression and international isolation were swept aside early in the new decade. On 2 February 1990 President F.W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC, the South African Communist Party, and other previously outlawed organisations. This was the prelude to the release from prison, on 12 February, of Nelson Mandela, who addressed a crowd of thousands from a balcony at the Cape Town City Hall that evening. It was a historic moment, a time of tumultuous emotions at home and general rejoicing abroad.

These epoch-making events brought both optimism and anxieties to the country. While a new dispensation was negotiated over the next three years, there was much uncertainty about the future and, for many South Africans, the barometer swung wildly between hope and despair. In my own field of endeavour, Mandela's release did not immediately signify the end of our troubles. The boycott as we had known it was lifted, only to be replaced by a selective boycott, generated now by internal rather than external decree - a state of affairs which continued to a greater or lesser extent throughout the remaining tenure of the Nationalist government. A boycott committee, composed of representative bodies such as MUSA (Musicians Union of South Africa), PAWE (Performing Arts Workers Equity) and others, had to approve the engagement of outside artists. The Cultural Desk of the ANC was also active in voicing either approval of or protest against visitors.

The South African Musician's Alliance (SAMA) was instrumental in dictating the flow of artists and, a year later, as reported by Peter Feldman in The Star of 1 February 1991, was still recommending a selective boycott, in terms of which visiting artists would be requested to contribute towards the cultural development of South Africa. Disapproval of visitors who merely came to make a fast buck was severe.

Hazel Feldman, who had already signed, for Sun City, Ice Express, a show which featured world champion ice-skating stars from Russia, Czechoslovakia and the USA, to come in 1990, had the first of several encounters with the boycott committee, who eventually agreed that she could honour the contract. Not everybody was so fortunate. The committee was periodically intractable over the years to come, and a typical example of sometimes ill-considered judgement was its failure to reach agreement with Cameron Mackintosh, who wanted to present Les Miserables here. The proposal became a political football, with inappropriate 'politically correct' changes being demanded of Mackintosh who responded by pulling out.

Within the country, however, the first and, indeed, only artists to break through the internal boycott barrier during the first year of the decade were the Lambada group, Kaoma, who visited in October. A vibrant and exciting ensemble of musicians from Brazil, France and the Cameroons, together with dancers from Latin America, they played the Standard Bank Arena to disappointingly small audiences. They returned in August the following year, but still failed to catch the imagination of the South African public.

The release of Nelson Mandela generated a huge concert on 17 March 1990 at Ellis Park, billed as The Human Rainbow Concert for Unity and Prosperity, at which the great man himself would occupy the presidential box as guest of honour. The hype was enormous, and an attendance of some 100 000 people was predicted. A song called 'We Want Mandela', specially written for the occasion, would be performed.

After the euphoria that had greeted Mandela's release, it was sad to report that his first public appearance at such an occasion was, in attendance and financial terms, a disaster. The reasons were several. The organisers had got it together at only ten days' notice, during which time Mr Mandela was on a visit to Sweden, thus casting doubt in the public mind as to whether he would actually appear at Ellis Park. Then, too, under the surface of general rejoicing, many potential ticket-buyers were concerned for their safety at such an event. It seemed, however, that the deciding factor was the seat price which, at R 15, was too high for the majority of township dwellers who could reasonably have been expected to come. In the event, only some eight thousand spectators were there, but at least the spirit of the occasion was unquenchable.

January was enlivened by Pieter Toerien's presentation at the Leonard Rayne of Jo'burg Follies, which he had commissioned Malcolm Terrey and Kevin Feather to write. Their two-hour send-up of prominent South Africans in every field, performed by Malcolm, Kevin, Jonathan Taylor and Odile Rault, was built on the foundations of their original little revue at the Black Sun, and proved so successful that a new annual version became a fixture. By the beginning of 1997, Jo'burg Follies 6 was playing in Cape Town after a successful Jo'burg run.

Pieter, in association with NAPAC, brought Ain't Misbehavin' to the Andre Huguenet. This five-handed show (Sam Marais, Natalia da Rocha, Sophie Foster, Abigail Kubeka, Basil Appolis), a hit on Broadway and in the West End, was an exhilarating tribute to the great composer, pianist and singer Fats Waller and audiences loved it. However, the Broadway musical Romance, Romance, directed by Geoffrey Sutherland with Mark Richardson and Kate Normington failed to interest the customers despite excellent reviews. In May, the cream of the country's farceurs was all working for Pieter. Gordon Mulholland, Rex Garner and Patricia Sanders shared the limelight in a revival (directed by Rex) of Move Over Mrs Markham at the Alhambra; and at the Andre Huguenet, in conjunction with Plewman Productions, Tim Plewman, Paul Ditchfield and Paul Andrews went through their comic paces in Michael Pertwee's Sextet (directed by Tim). At the Leonard Rayne, Rex directed Bill Flynn, Jana Cilliers and Maralin Vanrenen in The Maintenance Man, a rather weird play by Richard Harris which limped along for a couple of months. May also brought news that Rodney Phillips, who had so successfully steered NAPAC to a brilliant lease of life, and who had left to manage the Lyric Opera House in Queensland, Australia, in 1988 (his NAPAC post was filled by Robert Cross), had been appointed deputy general manager of the Sydney Opera House. Rodney returned to South Africa in 1996 to succeed John Slemon at the Baxter Theatre.

On 7 May, Graham and I joined many other friends of Taubie Kushlick at a gathering to celebrate the indomitable trouper's eightieth birthday. It was a marvellous party, held at the Kushlick's enchanting home where, at eighty, Taubie had lost none of her skills as a hostess. I could hardly believe that she and I had been colleagues for forty-two years. Sadly, this was to be the last of such occasions before Taubie's death in 1991.

During 1990, the theatre lost the colourful and adventurous Yango John to cancer in June. Then one of our heavyweight actors, Richard Haines, died of a brain tumour on 22 July, aged only forty-one. The last of his many memorable performances in South Africa had been as Iago in the Market Othello, after which he had gone abroad to success with the Royal Shakespeare Company, notably as King Lear. His death was a tremendous and tragic loss, and his memory was honoured the following year when Pieter Toerien named his new theatre in the Alhambra complex after him.

The loss of my friend of nearly fifty years, Ethel London, in October, was particularly painful to bear. For four decades she had fought tirelessly but to no avail to get a theatre built in Benoni and, during the mid-Eighties had witnessed the closure of the East Rand Theatre Club with all its rich associations. With her passing went one of the theatre profession's most ardent fans and stalwart supporters.

The year also witnessed the passing of an organisation, the Friends of the Ballet Society. Formed in 1972 the Society, which had two thousand members, organised preferential and discount booking schemes which did much to contribute to the popularity of ballet but, with the introduction of PACT's own subscription scheme, chairman Michael Hobson had no choice but to preside over its dissolution.

On the classical music front, Deon van der Walt, accompanied on the piano by Albie van Schalkwyk, gave a recital at the State Opera House, reviving fond memories for me of Peter Pears with his rendition of Schubert's Die Schӧne Müllerin. And also, for PACT Opera, visiting German Günther Schneider-Siemssen designed and directed Beethoven's Fidelio, with Carla Pohl singing the title role and Wolfgang Fassler as Florestan.

There was more township-based music from Mbongeni Ngema at the Market in March, with the opening of his new musical called Township Fever. It dealt with the SATS strike of 1987 and with violence, which fuelled the most powerful of its sequences but, although vibrant, it was somewhat overwrought and- despite a run in the USA- failed to emulate the success of Sarafina.

Also, at the Market, Janice Honeyman directed Pieter-Dirk Uys in A Kiss on Your Koeksister, subtitled 'A National Party Bizarre', at the Warehouse in January while, at the Upstairs, Malcolm Purkey directed Speed the Plow. This David Mamet play, written in his characteristically brutal vernacular, starred Andrew Buckland, Dawid Minnaar and Megan Kruskal, who did full justice to Mamet's expression of the mores and morals - or lack of same - in the Hollywood movie producers' jungle.

By contrast, Clare Stopford directed Ibsen's A Doll's House with Grethe Fox, Ron Smerczak Andrew Buckland, Kate Edwards and Pierre Knoesen at the Upstairs in May- while PACT was mining the classic repertoire to bring an Afrikaans version of King Lear by Uys Krige to the State Theatre and the Roodepoort Civic, directed by François Swart with Louis van Niekerk as Lear; while, at the Adcock-Ingram, Ilse van Hemert directed Chekhov's The Seagull with an all-star cast headed by Sandra Prinsloo, Michael McCabe and, as Nina, Embeth Davidtz.

Other highlights of the Market year included the return of Patrick Mynhardt with his one-man shows. Another Sip of Jerepigo was a hit in January and he was back at the Warehouse in May with The Boy from Bethulie. That attracted such excellent business that he returned in December with Just Jerepigo. Mark Banks came in June, deflating everyone and everything 'from Cape Point to Pick 'n' Pay' in A Room with a Revue, but, in August, American playwright Wendy Wasserman's The Heidi Chronicles proved a tedious disappointment, despite its credentials as a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner. In September, Fats Dibeco and Arthur Molepo shared the spotlight with the Handspring Puppet Company in Barney Simon's enchanting fable, Starbrites, a simple story of life in Soweto. Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones' puppets represented all the supporting characters, from gossiping neighbours through prowling alley cats to she been queens in this play about regeneration, inspired by the heady days after Mandela's release. After a three-month season at the Market, Starbrites toured the UK and went to Dublin and Copenhagen. Back at the Market in October, Fiona Ramsay turned director for Laughing Wild, a New York comedy by Christopher Durang which starred Robert Whitehead and Vanessa Cooke.

In March, PACT Drama dedicated its production of Macbeth to Percy Baneshik, arts journalist and critic for more than fifty years, in acknowledgement of his invaluable contribution to the development of theatre. Directed by Dieter Reible, Macbeth was unusual in having the Thane and his lady played alternately by Graham Hopkins/Sandra Prinsloo and Jonathan Rands/Mitzi Booysen. In May, at the Windybrow, Sandra Duncan appeared in a one-woman show called Persona. Directed by Terrence Shank, the script featured five characters from the works of Canadian writer Margaret Laurence, a quintet embodied with expertise and poignancy by Sandra, one of the country's finest actresses. Then, at the Windybrow in October, another fine actress, Wilna Snyman, followed suit with a virtuoso performance as Emily Hobhouse in Dear Mrs Steyn, a one-woman play inspired by Hobhouse's writings. It was written and directed by Deon Opperman. Opperman, with Garth Holmes, had also been co-commissioned by Pieter Toerien to write Playboys, an idea born out of the success of the Chippendales. This, too, was running in October, at the Andre Huguenet, but was not the hit that had been hoped for.

Pieter fared much better with the Broadway farce Lend Me a Tenor, with the gilt-edged duo of Tobie Cronje and Rex Garner, plus David Dennis. Rex was back with Pieter after directing the racy and riotous Grin and Bare It for Tim Plewman's management at the Victory Theatre with Gordon Mulholland, Hal Orlandini, Tim, and Mike Huff.

The Windybrow was also the venue for Leonard Schach's Habimah Theatre production, in Hebrew, of A Walk in the Woods, which had played in Tel Aviv in tandem with Leonard's Market Theatre production which visited there. To Leonard's great satisfaction, the Israeli visitors played to packed houses during their short season.

On 7 August, at the Playhouse in Durban, the curtain rose, after a period of intensive creativity and planning, on one of the most demanding and ambitious productions ever undertaken. Director Geoffrey Sutherland and designer Andrew Botha, joined in the latter stages of creation by musical director Graham Scott, had spent a few years working at the formula for a show which would be a visualisation of the songs of Freddy Mercury (who died in November 1991) and Queen.

The result was Queen at the Opera, a large-scale fantasy in song and dance, attaching eighteen of Mercury's hits to surreal, sometimes bizarre, often erotic images, much in the style of a pop video. Exciting, original and seductive, it was tremendously successful in Durban, where the season marked the beginning of a long and sometimes difficult life for this rock-based show.

Johannesburg did not get the show until August 1992, after the death of Geoffrey Sutherland. It came to the Standard Bank Arena where, although it was critically acclaimed, attendances were disappointing. Three years later it returned, this time to the Civic, where its quality was at last given popular recognition and the show toured the country playing to capacity houses. In 1996, Queen at the Opera returned to the Civic, then to the State Theatre where it ran from November 1996 to January 1997, before opening to a rapturous reception at the Nico Malan in Cape Town.

As the first year of tentative political freedom advanced to a close, the entertainment world serviced the holiday season in much the same vein as it had for several years. In Cape Town, the Christmas show was Keith Grenville's production of The Phantom of the Opera for CAPAB- not the Lloyd Webber musical, but a play version by local broadcaster Michael Drinn. The shameless gimmick worked, drawing huge audiences and making a fortune. It fell to the Baxter to supply the Christmas musical, the ever-popular Guys and Dolls. Pieter-Dirk Uys was also at the Baxter in his new satire, An Evening with Evita Bezuidenhout, while South Africa's internationally famous jazz pianist, Abdullah Ibrahim (formerly Dollar Brand), came home to appear at the Baxter from 31 December.

The joint performing arts councils (excluding CAPAB, who had staged it during the 1989/90 season with Michael Atkinson and Aviva Pelham) chose My Fair Lady for Christmas. Directed by François Swart, with Graham Hopkins and Kate Normington (Ian Steadman and Jocelyn Broderick alternating), it opened at the State Theatre and played to a hundred per cent capacity. Meanwhile, at the Alexander, PACT's annual pantomime from Janice Honeyman was The Sleeping Beauty with Gaby Lomberg and Joanna Weinberg, while, at the Leonard Rayne, Pieter offered seasonal frivolity with Jo'burg Follies 2.

At the Sound Stage, Richard Loring opened the off-Broadway musical, Pumpboys and Dinettes with Paul Ditchfield, Jenny de Lenta, Greg Plotz, Tonia Selley, Terence Reis and Bryan Schimmel, and, at the Market, Nicholas Ellenbogen's authentically indigenous pantomime, A Nativity, was the zaniest, most exuberant version of the Nativity anyone could imagine.

Judy Page who, over the years, had played almost every major role in a musical, for all the managements who'd undertaken them, opened at Sun City as the star of their new extravaganza, Bravo, while the Million Dollar Golf Tournament celebrated its tenth year, living up to its claim that 'We are the biggest and we are the best'. In an unbearably exciting finish, David Frost took the first prize for the second year in a row, having gone to the eighteenth hole in the final round in a tie with Jose Maria Olazabal. The Spaniard was left with tears of tension, frustration and disappointment coursing down his cheeks.

I returned to Johannesburg and my office to face a year of unprecedented demand at Computicket, as the new South Africa opened its doors to willing corners on a grand scale.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

ENTR'ACTE: THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING

The landmark year that would become known as the year of the Russian invasion began on a high note, not with Russian visitors but with a major tour by India's number one box-office movie star, Amitabh Bachchan. The new climate of political freedom enabled promoter Arrant Singh of Videovision to organise this visit of the charismatic entertainer. Bachchan, who sang on stage, came with a hundred-strong company of singers and dancers, arriving at Durban airport at the beginning of January, to be swamped by thousands of fans from the Indian community.

Only two concerts had been arranged, the first at King's Park Stadium in Durban on 5 January 1991, the second at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg the following day, which represented a massive logistical nightmare in terms of moving and installing the equipment in time. Though ticket prices were very high (R 250 down to R 30), the Johannesburg concert still attracted some thirty-five thousand spectators. The Feldmans and I, with Dora Sowden who was here on a visit, were among the handful of non-Asians there to witness the spectacle which, though lavish and exotic, was more Broadway than Bombay.

In May, Hugh Masekela returned from thirty-two years in exile to give a concert called Sekunjalo, This Is It at the Standard Bank Arena. Definitely a local hero as well as an international musician of repute, Masekela was joined by many artists, among them Bayete, Sankamota and former Capetonian Morris Goldberg. The ecstatic audience relished the four-hour bombardment (no interval) of music that included kwela, township jazz and spirituals and, with Masekela on trumpet and flugelhorn and Goldberg on alto-sax, it was a night to remember.

The impact of the Russian invasion was inestimable. For decades we had grown up in a society where anything disapproved of by the government was labelled 'communist' and where people were jailed and exiled for so-called communist leanings. There was no Russian embassy in the country, we imported no Russian goods, indeed, we had never seen a Russian. The idea that hordes of these sinister creatures from another planet were to descend on our cities was extraordinary, and the anticipation and excitement were immense.

In the event, of course, those who met them discovered they were not only human, but warm, volatile and interesting. The visitors were overwhelmed by the reception they received from the 'evil capitalists' of South Africa and spent all their spare time- and dollars- besieging our shopping malls like deprived children let loose in a toy shop.

The Russians began laying cultural siege to the country that had, for so long been taught to fear them, in June 1991. The first group to arrive came by courtesy of the Cresta Shopping Centre which, in association with Josef Schneider Productions and Eric Lyall Promotions, presented Ice Spectacular. Billed as 'The Russian All Stars', the show brought twenty-two of the world's top ice-dancers from the USSR, led by then reigning Olympic champions Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov.

The public response to the lyrical and athletic perfectionism of this company was fantastic, and both the Cape Town and Johannesburg seasons were sold out. In Johannesburg, however, incorrect seating plans at the Cresta Ice Arena were reminiscent of the Disney on Parade chaos back in the Film Trust Arena days but, despite this, extra performances were scheduled in response to the demand.

From Computicket's point of view, booking hit us like an avalanche, and our budget projections had to be completely redone - not that, after the recent years of financial struggle I was anything but overjoyed by this turn of events. The Russian All Stars marked the beginning of an ice explosion that brought huge revenue and established the non-Russian Holiday on Ice as an annual mid-year attraction.

I had seen the Amsterdam-based Holiday on Ice company, comprising skaters recruited from all over the world, when they appeared in South Africa in 1957, unveiling lavish costumes, dazzling sets and breath-taking displays of artistry. They now returned, under the aegis of Seraph Promotions, headed by a newcomer to the country's show business scene, Glen Broomberg, in association with Malcolm Russell. The company played the Standard Bank Arena where, although overlapping with the Russian season at Cresta in June, the response was incredible. From 1993, they have been presented by The Standard Bank Arena under Mike Dunk, with Gail Jaffit-Leibman handling their publicity.

When Holiday on Ice completed its run in late June, the Standard Bank Arena hosted two sold-out concerts by the Dutch group BZN, who also appeared as the opening attraction at the new Momentum Arena at Voortrekkerhoogte. The demand for seats for BZN and the rash of other overseas entertainers once again highlighted the lack of suitable venues which had bedevilled us in the past.

Although the new Civic Theatre building (designed by State Theatre architects Waiter Smit and Hans Botha with four auditoria) wasn't due to open until late 1992, I was invited to join a party of media people in July 1991 for a preview of the state-of-the-art backstage facilities. During the tour, I met Tomas Sousedik and Jiri Vrba, the director-general and second-in-command of the Czechoslovakian Arts Agency. It was typical of the climate of the times that they were here from Prague to see if they could do business in South Africa, a new market that was, apparently, the subject of wide discussion in Eastern Europe.

In the event, no Czech company did come here, but throughout the year my office was besieged by letters and visits from Eastern European and Russian agents offering every kind of entertainment from ballet through soloists to circuses and quoting fees in dollars as though we were a hard currency country. All my explanations about our economy, and the fact that unknown classical soloists would draw no audiences didn't deter the agents from trying. Nobody wanted to hear that the country's resources were limited and that we couldn't provide an easy way to make their fortunes. Indeed, I began to feel somewhat alarmed at the prospects of a general invasion because I couldn't see the long-term benefit of flooding the country with entertainment for an audience that was limited both in size and disposable income.

The avalanche of approaches from the Russians was not due entirely to the change in our political climate but coincided with the monumental changes that were leading to the collapse of the USSR. With the new democracy in their own country, performing artists were now free to travel, but while the loosening grip of the Communist state was welcomed, the downside was withdrawal of subsidy to their arts, leaving companies to find their own means of survival.

September brought the year's third spectacle on ice with the arrival of the Ukrainian Ice Theatre company with their Festival on Ice. They were the oldest established company of their kind in the Soviet Union, and the group that came here included many members of Russia's Olympic ice-dancing team, as well as champions in other areas of skating. The Ukrainians began their visit at the Good Hope Centre in Cape Town and opened at the Cresta Ice Rink in Johannesburg on 19 September. That same morning came the announcement of another major show from the Soviet Union, the Moscow Circus.

Booked by Josef Schneider for Eric Lyall and the Cresta management, the Moscow Circus comprised seventy-one performers, twenty-seven dogs, eleven bears, nine horses and thirty tons of freight. In view of the huge scale of the circus, the Boswell Wilkie Circus were co-opted into joint management, and the spectacle opened on 1 October in the Cresta parking lot! No sooner had this attraction got under way when we had the news that the official Moscow State Circus would open on 10 December at the Standard Bank Arena for Seraph Promotions and would subsequently tour.

The public were growing slightly confused as to whose circus was which, particularly as Boswell Wilkie were touring their own in December as usual, and Brian's Circus turned up at Eastgate on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Not even New York could support four circuses simultaneously. The situation was becoming ridiculous and the results were not difficult to predict as they vied for custom. As the first to arrive, the Moscow Circus fared best, while the Moscow State Circus was the biggest loser.

In the midst of the big tops which were springing up all over the place, the seventy-strong Georgian State Dance Theatre arrived for a ten-day engagement at the Sun City Superbowl from 3 October- an event that had caused much ill-feeling and almost didn't happen at all. The Cultural Desk of the ANC had reached an agreement with Hazel Feldman that Sun City would, for a time at least, confine itself to the promotion of local acts in line with their successful seasons of Mango Groove and the 'Night Journey into Jazz' concert series.

The Cultural Desk maintained that they hadn't been consulted about the proposed visit of the Georgian dancers and accused Sun City of a total violation of the current boycott agreements; Sun City, in turn, maintained that they had gone through the proper channels and had received written approval. After much negotiation, an agreement was reached whereby Sun International committed themselves, in co-operation with the Dance Alliance, to present workshops given by the visitors. This would, in line with the boycott philosophy, enable South African dancers to benefit from exposure to new and different techniques.

Meanwhile, PACT Ballet mounted a production of Giselle and brought soloist Alla Mikhalchenko from the Bolshoi Ballet to dance three performances, partnered by Jeremy Coles. There was a buzz of anticipation at the State Theatre where I went to the first performance, a gala attended by a visiting dignitary from the Bolshoi but, in truth, Miss Mikhalchenko gave a soft-centred, lacklustre performance which I found disappointing.

The Russian presence featured, too, in South Africa's prestigious Unisa International Music Competition when, for the first time in its ten-year history, Russian musicians arrived to compete for a share of the R 250 000 prize money.

We were visited by a stream of classical soloists of varying quality. Among the most memorable were violinist Igor Oistrakh (son of David) who gave recitals at the Civic accompanied on the piano by his wife Natalia Zertsalova, and pianist Oxana Yablonskaya, a familiar visitor, who played for the JMS and with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pavel Sorokin.

An uncontroversial visitor, and one whom I was delighted to hear and charmed to meet, was the celebrated Port Elizabeth-born soprano Elizabeth Connell, who had received her early training at Wits, where she graduated with a B.Mus. cum laude, and where I had seen her in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. She was brought to South Africa by SAMRO (South African Music Rights Organisation), and I was proud to be invited on to the organising committee for her visit.

By the time she came home to give a series of recitals and master classes at the Wits Great Hall, Elizabeth Connell had become one of the world's leading opera stars, having matured from a mezzo to a dramatic soprano. Highlights of her career had included a stint as principal mezzo at the English National Opera, a sensational Bayreuth debut as Ostrud in Lohengrin in 1980, singing opposite Luciano Pavarotti in Idomeneo at the Salzburg festival in 1984, and giving an impressive Senta in The Flying Dutchman at Bayreuth in 1990. She was as delighted to be here as we were to have her.

Away from the Russian theme, opera also joined the rest of the world in acknowledging the Mozart bi-centenary. South African Airways sponsored four new Mozart opera productions, one for each of the performing arts councils. CAPAB produced Don Giovanni, NAPAC a modern-dress production of The Marriage of Figaro with Raphael Vilakazi in the title role, and PACOFS ventured into Il Seraglio, but the clear triumph belonged to PACT. Their brilliant staging of The Magic Flute, directed by Scandinavian Pet Halmen, against breathtakingly beautiful sets, boasted a first-rank cast, including the Japanese soprano Sumi Jo as the Queen of the Night.

South Africa, however, continued to open its doors to Russian cultural ambassadors over the next three years. In 1992 a company known simply as The Russian Ballet Company filled an engagement at the Baxter in Cape Town and Miss Russia won the first Miss World contest to be staged at Sun City. In 1993 Josef Schneider Productions, with sponsorship from Agfa presented the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre, a company of forty-five dancers who gave two programmes, Giselle and a double bill choreographed by Boris Eifman, Requiem de Mozart and Figaro de Intrigues. They performed at the only venue available, the Wits University Great Hall before touring to Bloemfontein and Cape Town, where, at the Three Arts Theatre, to the dismay of the dancers, live rats joined in the performance! The tour ended at the State Theatre, where only one performance was staged because the theatre was occupied with PACT Ballet's current production of Swan Lake. The St Petersburg company's Irina Zyrianova remained in South Africa to become a principal dancer with PACT.

Concurrently with the St Petersburg Ballet, Schneider was presenting the Russian Red Army Ensemble throughout the country. This thirty-three- man choir specialised in traditional Russian songs, known throughout the world, such as 'Orchichornya' ('Black Eyes') and 'The Volga Boatman'. They drew huge crowds, as did the brilliant forty-strong Don Cossack troupe - swordsman, dancers, singers - at the Civic Theatre in 1994.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

TWENTY YEARS ON

Against the background of excitement engendered by the Russians and other visitors, much else was happening in Johannesburg to occupy me and my staff. On a personal note, however, the highlight of the year was the celebration of Computicket's twentieth birthday. I was determined that this significant occasion would not pass unnoticed, and I planned a special party for those members of my staff who had given ten or more years of service. The actual date of the anniversary fell on Friday 16 August 1991, and I planned the party for Saturday 17 August when it was more practical to fly staff up from Cape Town and Durban.

Forty-three Computicket staff members, some of whom had started with me at Show Service and many of whom had been with Computicket since its inception in 1971, were delivered to a banqueting room in the Volkswagen Conference Centre in Midrand. I had had the room decorated in red and white, the Computicket colours, and continued the theme in the table settings for which I had napkins and matches specially made. To reflect the reason for the gathering and evoke our shared memories, I had trawled through my archives and made display boards with photographs of memorable moments involving many of the visiting artists with whom we had been involved over the years. These were ranged round the room.

Every guest was given a miniature director's chair- actually a magnet for paper clips - carrying the company name and logo, while all long service staff received a certificate of service, a cheque, a small engraved carriage clock and, best of all, a specially designed windcheater. Red and grey, with the Computicket logo on the breast pocket, the jackets were lined with a fabric whose pattern consisted of dozens of theatre tickets on which, in place of the names of shows, were the names of every one of the recipients.

I also had an audio-visual display made, charting the history of the company and, to my delight, managed to find pictures of all the guests, taken twenty years earlier. These gave rise to much hilarity, especially the picture of Tony Grimshaw, our English computer expert, who had arrived with the team back in 1971 as a hippie bachelor.

The lengths to which I went to make this a memorable event arose from my appreciation of the unstinting loyalty and hard work of these people, without which Computicket would never have survived. Many of them were my terminal operators, who worked uncomplainingly in the unsympathetic and confined environment of what was little more than a box, yet they never flagged in the face of stressful demands and I felt very deeply that they deserved due recognition.

My old friend and first theatre management client, Pieter Toerien, the only outsider present, had agreed to be the guest speaker and, with his usual flair, paid very warm tribute to the Computicket staff and kept us all in stitches with stories about various stars he had brought out. The evening held a surprise for me, too, when Mike Egan, the CEO of Interleisure, presented me with the minutes of the first Annual General Meeting ever held by Show Service (Pty) Ltd back in 1956- a document which, with others, had gone into Interleisure's records.

The festivities went on long and late as the gathering reminisced about crises weathered and successes relished. I spoke of Joey Black who, sadly, had died shortly before and who, in her twenty years of mainly manning the terminal at the Rosebank Firs, had built up such a reputation as a character and so devoted a following among her customers, that she was the subject of a feature in Fair Lady magazine which, alas, she didn't live to see.

Many a story was told that night, and I was the butt of several, thankfully affectionate, jokes about some of my more obsessive habits. Over the years, as with any cash business, we had inevitably had our fair share of rotten apples who put their hands in the till or attempted to defraud the company, sometimes for reasons of personal difficulty. In a couple of cases I had given the defaulters a second chance because, as Iona Myburgh recalled, I could forgive a thief, but I could never forgive a liar. As the company laughed about my habits under stress when- or so I was told - I became manic, increasing the speed of my well-known run up and down the corridors, grabbing everybody's phones and attempting to deal with everything personally and at once, Aubrey Louw confessed that he had been known to slip tranquillizers into my tea. He has stuck steadfastly to this story and, for all I know, maybe he did.

The anecdotes and recollections came in a never-ending stream, reminding me of how my desire to offer a comprehensive and unequalled service had landed the information department with some strange requests. The strangest of these - and the favourite of the stories I can tell against myself \- happened when, one day, I heard Iona repeatedly saying no to whatever was being requested on the other end of the phone. Since I prided myself that there was nothing to which we couldn't find an answer, I grabbed the phone and took over to discover that the caller was in search of a pedigree Doberman bitch to mate with his Doberman male. Did I know of one? Somewhat startled but unable to resist a challenge, and with my beloved Katie 'in season' at the time, I replied, 'No, but I can offer you a pedigreed Bulldog bitch.'

He didn't take up the offer. The less appealing aspects of dealing with the public were thoroughly aired. One concerned Phyllis Norton, my Benoni operator, who suffered a heart attack while on duty alone. Fortunately, the pharmacist and his assistant in the shop opposite had run across to help her. While he tended to Phyllis, his assistant called for an ambulance and rang my office, during which time a customer turned up to buy tickets. Although she could see through the glass what was happening and was assured by the chemist's assistant that a replacement for Mrs Norton would soon arrive, she knocked persistently on the window and, with total disregard for the seriousness of the situation said, 'Yes, yes, but while Mrs Norton is lying there, she could at least tell me whether there are any good seats left for this film at Eastgate tonight!'.

The celebration was a most wonderful occasion. It was twenty years on for Computicket, but for me it had really begun thirty-seven years earlier with a desk, a phone, a couple of plans, some coloured pencils and an uncertain future. The twentieth birthday felt to me an affirmation of everything I could have wished for.

The year had also begun with a party. It was given by Pieter Toerien at the Alhambra to celebrate Rex Garner's seventieth birthday and honour the extraordinary contribution that this prolific comedian, actor and director had made to the commercial theatre in his adopted country. Rex, accompanied by his wife Tammy and their three daughters, was joined by the massed ranks of the theatrical fraternity who, with Pieter, had contributed to the cost of a piano- the handsome birthday gift presented to a visibly moved Rex. It was an evening filled with love and warmth, which brought back many memories- not least of Rex's unique ability to forecast how long a play would run before it ever opened. He was only wrong twice, underestimating the possibilities of Mass Appeal and, more particularly, of Birds of Paradise, for which he predicted a twelve-week run; the original production lasted sixteen months.

This was the year that, after a couple of productions staged there early on, the Alhambra closed for alterations. Pieter spent in excess of a million rand improving the premises, adding a circle to the Alhambra auditorium and building a third, hundred-seater, auditorium. At my urging, he got Anthony Farmer involved in the designs. With the opening of the new Alhambra, Pieter relinquished his lease on the Andre Huguenet Theatre.

The complex reopened on 27 September with the inauguration of the Richard Haines Theatre, at which the actor's mother and brother were present to see the first performance of the first play in the new venue, A.R. Gurney's Love Letters. This gentle epistolary romance was directed by Janice Honeyman with Sean Taylor and Jana Cilliers. The following night saw the opening of Never the Sinner at the Leonard Rayne. Directed by Frith Banbury, this play about the notorious young killers in the 1920s, Leopold and Loeb, starred Russel Savadier, Gary D'Alessandro, Rex Garner and Simon Jones. The third opening night in a row, at the rebuilt Alhambra, was of Marc Urquhart's production of A Slice of Saturday Night, a musical which offered a nostalgic wallow in the songs and dances of the 1960s. With this trio of productions, Pieter was certainly offering a variety of choice.

At the Market, Andrew Buckland (while appearing in a return run of The Ugly Noo Noo) directed Soli Philander (and his 'alter ego' Rosie September) in Soli's one-man show Take Two, a look at life in South Africa's coloured community which delighted audiences at the Laager. In the main house, Janice Honeyman's production of Shadowlands touched an emotional chord that brought many people to the Market for the first time. William Nicholson's play told the story of writer C.S. Lewis and his late-life love affair with American poet Joy Davidman who dies of cancer. As played by Brian Murray and Helen Bourne (both award-nominated), there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Janice, who had won the Breytenbach Epathlon for Hard Times in 1989, scooped the National Vita Award for best director for Shadowlands. The production, a joint venture between the Company and Moyra Fine, marked the last play at the Market under Mannie Manim's aegis.

Mannie had announced in August 1990 that, from March 1991, he would be resigning from the theatre he co-founded to take up the directorship of the Performing Arts Administration at Wits University. In the words of one newspaper headline 'shock waves' had been sent through the theatre community by this news, though Mannie made it clear that he would retain his position as a Trustee of the Market and would not be severing all his links. Indeed, in the years following his departure, he has mounted productions there for his own company and has continued to come in as lighting designer for certain plays.

In helping to put the Market on the map, Mannie was integral to the spreading of its positive image abroad, where he forged influential contacts of immense value to South Africa. In an interview with Garalt MacLiam he said that his decision had been taken because of 'exhaustion, the feeling of being trapped, the feeling of being spread as thin as rice paper, the feeling of routine, the feeling of not being able to get to the work I truly loved. It may have been the most difficult decision I'll ever make in my life.'

Sadly, and ironically, Shadowlands also marked Moyra Fine's last venture. A woman of great personal grace and generosity, who dedicated herself first to The Space Theatre and then to her own company, caring for her actors and always staying outside the petty world of theatrical gossip, she died of cancer in August. Her memory remains honoured in the annual Moyra Fine Vita Awards which were instituted in 1993.

The biggest personal blow for me in 1991 was the death, on 13 March, of Taubie Kushlick, South Africa's larger-than-life legend and my friend and colleague for forty-seven years. Philip Kushlick, her devoted husband of sixty years duration, was at her bedside and, desperately lonely without Taubie, died only months later. Her death left an enormous void both in my life and in the South African theatre world and tributes poured in from all quarters.

'She ... was certainly the mother of the commercial theatre. She was never an easy person, but to me she was loveable,' said Gordon Mulholland, while Pieter Toerien said, 'I was never sure who was more terrified after a play, her or the critics. She is irreplaceable.' Shirley Firth spoke for many when she said, 'Israel had Golda Meir, South Africa had Taubie Kushlick. Redoubtable, invincible and maddening. One could hate her or love her, but never ignore her.'

Indeed!

I lost two other friends in 1991, both from the ballet world. The death of Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias, of cancer, plunged the whole world into mourning for its most revered ballerina. Asked to pay tribute to her on SABC radio, I recalled our first meeting in London in 1952 and her magical appearances at His Majesty's and the Zoo Lake in 1956. I talked of the generally acknowledged fact that many dancers had exceeded Fonteyn in virtuosity or dramatic intensity, but nobody had equalled her special gift for grasping the intention and balance between the dance and the music which enabled her to communicate emotional meaning so expressively. Perhaps, I suggested, the supreme secret of her art had been her ability to convey her own enjoyment of it. To see Fonteyn was to love her. Margot was not only one of the greatest dancers of all time, but a great friend and an exceptional human being, whose prime characteristic was her humility. I was saying farewell to a fairy princess.

In August, David Poole died in Cape Town aged sixty-five. One of many South African dancers who had made a substantial career in Britain and contributed much to British ballet, he elected to return home to help in the growth of local ballet. For many years the head of CAPAB Ballet, he was the country's first professor of ballet and head of the University of Cape Town Ballet School. David was not only a gifted artist, but a man of dignity, intelligence, humour and kindness, and the South African ballet fraternity had much cause to mourn his loss.

Almost, it seemed, in defiance of the large-scale entertainment on offer, small venues and independent managements continued to present smaller shows. Their risks increased in March when the budget placed a further strain on the industry with the introduction of ten per cent GST (later VAT and rising to fourteen per cent), on all ticket sales.

At the Little Theatre in Rosebank, renamed the Waybury for a short period, I relived my first ever live theatre experience when Bess Finney directed Joyce Dalton as Our Gracie, based on the life and legend of Gracie Fields. At the Wits Theatre, Nicholas Ellenbogen's Theatre for Africa amused audiences with a delightful piece of slapstick called Raiders of the Lost Aardvark. In March, at the new Village Manor Theatre in the Balalaika Hotel, Jimmy Bell directed Natalie Gamsu, Michael de Pinna, Godfrey Charles and Chrissy Caine in Let's Do It, a celebration of Cole Porter's music, while, at Ziggy's in the Ascot Hotel, Norwood, a wonderful a capella group calling themselves 'Not the Midnight Mass', and consisting of Alan Glass, Terence Reis, siblings Christine and Graham Weir and Jenny de Lenta, enjoyed a totally sold out season

In September at Richard Loring's Sound Stage, Kate Normington, Ian von Memerty, John Fletcher and Lisa Melman, (musical director Bryan Schimmel), opened in A Touch of Webber, A Taste of Rice. Crowds flocked to this compilation show which lasted well into 1992. Meanwhile, the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, had been playing to packed houses at the Durban Playhouse. The NAPAC production, directed and choreographed by Geoffrey Sutherland and designed by Andrew Botha, starred Graham Weir (alternating with Steve Walsh) as Jesus, Sam Marais as Judas and Brenda Radloff as Mary Magdalene. It had utilised the expertise of every NAPAC department and went on to win the National Vita Award for best musical.

As economic constraints tightened on the theatre, PACT's programme included several collaborative ventures. In January, the Drama Theatre at the Pretoria State hosted the combined performing arts councils' production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Mark Richardson and Anne Power starred for director Geoffrey Sutherland in this stage adaptation of the 1950s MGM hit movie musical, which had opened at the Durban Playhouse in December 1990. The show also toured to the Nico Malan in Cape Town and the Sand du Plessis in Bloemfontein, capturing the hearts of huge audiences everywhere.

Early in the year, Moira Blumenthal's production of Ghetto in association with PACT had fuelled heated debate among the small number of people who saw it. Translated from Joshua Sobol's Hebrew original by Alan Swerdlow, and set in the Vilna ghetto, the play tackled the weighty theme of compromise in horrific circumstances in order to keep art and theatre alive. The plot focused on the relationship between a young Jewish singer and her unwilling affair with a Nazi officer which saves her and her theatre group from the death camps.

Terrence Shank's production starred Jenny de Lenta, Anthony Fridjohn, Danny Keogh and Dale Cutts. I was fascinated to learn that the story of the play was based on the life of my old friend Chayela Rosenthal. After her escape from Germany, she had become a leading light of the South African Yiddish Theatre in its heyday and had settled in Cape Town until her death.

Joyce Levinsohn Productions, in association with PACT at the Windybrow, presented Tales of Beatrix Potter for the Easter holidays and, in July, a revival of the musical Oliver! with Michael de Pinna as Fagin. Meanwhile, at the Intimate Theatre, Jill Gerard's People's Theatre mounted Winnie the Pooh at Easter and The Wizard of Oz in the July school holidays. It seemed as though the good old days of Children's Theatre had returned.

In June, TRUK staged Die Sakeman van Venesie (The Merchant of Venice) at the Alexander with Patrick Mynhardt, Gys de Villiers and Brumilda van Rensburg at the Alexander, while Christmas brought the annual panto, a revival of Janice Honeyman's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, directed by Maralin Vanrenen with Tobie Cronje, Jocelyn Broderick, Jacqui Singer, Neville Thomas, and Samantha Peo in the title role. Johannesburg had two pantos in this year with Nicholas Ellenbogen directing Theatre for Africa's all-South African Cinderella at the Wits Theatre. It was set in the imaginary town of Nuga Moya where the staff of the local post office created a fun-filled evening of music and laughter. The Christmas attraction at the State Theatre was Lerner and Loewe's whimsical musical, Brigadoon, which François Swart directed with Mark Richardson and Sue Conyers in the leads.

Apart from the Georgian dancers, Sun City had pursued its agreed policy of presenting local artists. In November, billed as 'Africa's Princess of Song', Yvonne Chaka Chaka appeared with the Soul Brothers in an all-South African show at the Superbowl. In mid-December Mango Groove, who had played to some 20 000 fans at Sun City in March, returned for three appearances at the Superbowl and, of course, December again welcomed the Million Dollar Golf, the eleventh tournament, won by Bernhard Langer, for the second time in seven years. Nick Faldo described the German champion's performance as being like 'a Mercedes Benz cruising along the autobahn'. The golfer's party, themed as a News Orleans Carnival this year, was an absolute riot. The champs were very much in their cups and, to the delight of onlookers, John Daly, Steve Elkington and Ian Woosnam stripped off their shirts, got on the stage and entertained us with some very drunken ditties. It was no wonder that none of these three was among the next day's winners, given the intense heat and the pain in their heads ...

The twentieth anniversary of Computicket had, happily, seen a complete turn-around in our financial situation, fuelled not only by increased live entertainment bookings, but by a major boom in cinema-going. Ster-Kinekor's managing director, Philip McDonald, said that the group would be spending over a hundred million rand during the next three years to increase the number of cinemas from the existing two hundred and twelve to three hundred and thirteen. He announced that one of the most exciting developments in cinemagoing was the growth of black audiences from some 200 000 in 1986 to around two million in 1991. Cinema attendances in general were showing a steady annual growth of around ten per cent.

The prospects for 1992 looked exciting. In November, we had opened booking for Paul Simon, the first major international star to come to South Africa since the change of political climate. We had sold around 27 000 tickets on the first day of booking without, of course, an inkling of the dramas that would attend his visit.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

TROUBLED WATERS

On Saturday 11 January 1992, Paul Simon stepped on to the stage at the Ellis Park Stadium with the personal endorsement of Nelson Mandela and the approval of the ANC, the South African Musician's Alliance and the government. His appearance effectively ended the boycott by overseas performers. Brought to South Africa by promoter Attie van Wyk, Simon's 'Born at the Right Time' tour- visiting Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, Durban and Cape Town - should have been a triumph for a South Africa newly returned to the international community. Instead, it became the centre of controversy, protest and violence.

Official approval of the tour failed to appease a number of black consciousness groups, including the Azanian People's Organisation (Azapo), the Azanian National Liberation Army (Azanla), the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and, most vociferously, Azapo's youth wing, Azayo. On the night of Simon's arrival, 7 January, an explosion shattered the windows of the offices of the management associated with the tour which were situated on the corner of Main and Goud Streets, a few blocks from Computicket's offices in central Johannesburg. Fortunately, nobody was in the building and there were no injuries. The attack, with further such incidents threatened, was aimed at stopping the tour. The official welcome party for Simon, to which I went, was attended by a range of people from the ANC's Thabo Mbeki and Communist Party supremo Joe Slovo to National Party Foreign Minister Pik Botha. It was amazing to see these people of diametrically opposed political views amiably chatting together. An historic photograph, published on the front page of The Star and headlined 'Back from the Cold', showed Nelson Mandela and Paul Simon, hands clasped high. We hoped this would send a message to the world that the boycott was over.

The official press conference held for Simon was arguably the largest of its kind ever seen in Johannesburg, attracting an unprecedented crowd of local and international journalists and TV cameras. Simon, giving every appearance of great strain, arrived late after a protracted meeting with Azanla, but answered questions confidently. The session, however, ended in a shambles when, at the close, the microphones were seized by Azapo representatives who harangued the gathering with their view that, in their eyes, since the country was still ruled by an apartheid government, the boycott should remain in place.

Newspaper coverage of the protests and disturbances was enormous, and the opening concert was postponed from Friday 10 January to Saturday 11 January with the Friday concert rescheduled for Sunday 12 January, provoking an avalanche of requests for refunds as the public, scared off by threats, gratefully accepted the excuse not to attend.

Graham and I went to the opening concert feeling somewhat apprehensive and prepared for the disturbances predicted by the press. In the event, protest was confined to some two hundred youths parading protest placards, a demonstration that fizzled out after a couple of hours. The concert carried on as planned and featured, among others, Ray Phiri, Ladysmith Black Mambazo who performed numbers from the 'Graceland' album and, as special guest star, 'Mama Afrika', the great Miriam Makeba.

Sadly, despite the ovation and subsequent rave reviews that greeted the performance, the high ticket prices, negative media coverage and threats of violence had affected sales badly, and the turnout (of mainly white patrons) was a huge disappointment to the promoters.

Another controversial visitor to the country was Hollywood actress Whoopi Goldberg, here to star in the film version of Sarafina. Her visit had, however, been sanctioned by the union, PAWE (Performing Arts Workers Equity).

Towards the end of her stay, Arrant Singh, the producer of the film, had his staff call hundreds of people at three one afternoon and ask them to come at five-thirty that same afternoon to an address in the northern suburbs to meet Miss Goldberg and Nelson Mandela. Appointments were cancelled, meetings were cut short and the entire Johannesburg jet set of all shades of colour, together with most of the showbiz world, descended on the house.

When the speeches started, I went upstairs from where I could look down on the mini-stage that had been constructed, and watched Mandela welcome Whoopi, which he did with great charm. Miriam Makeba, called upon to sing for the visitor, announced her choice of song as 'My Beautiful Mother'. To my utter astonishment, it was the Sophie Tucker hit, 'My Yiddishe Momma', transposed for the occasion - most appropriate for Miss Goldberg, I thought!

The radical black American film director Spike Lee also visited Johannesburg in 1992. He had come to shoot a short sequence for his film Malcolm X, and I met him at the Market where he was presented with a spear and shield by associate director, John Kani.

Film matters were in the news, too, when the Directorate of Publications finally acknowledged that adults were capable of exercising discretion on their own behalf by easing age restrictions on films and videos. The new, freer climate of thinking inspired Nu-Metro and Starnet cinemas to ignore the Sunday Observance Act and open their NI City Complex in Cape Town on Sundays, though without advertising. They had their arguments in favour to the ready but, by April, all cinemas were officially allowed to operate on Sundays except during the hours of morning church services.

Film Festivals, too, took off with new vigour. Len Davis, for years the pre-eminent figure on the film festival scene, announced a bumper programme for 1992 that would include the personal appearance of several European stars and directors. The focal point of the 1992 Festival was a retrospective of the distinguished Hungarian director, Istvan Szabo's films, with Szabo in attendance to discuss them. His Meeting Venus, starring Glenn Close as an operatic soprano was, in my view, a delight.

In September Yves Robert, the French filmmaker of My Father's Glory and My Mother's Castle came for the UTA Film Festival, accompanied by actresses Nathalie Roussel and Anemone, and in December Jean-Jacques Annaud came to promote The Lover. The new internationalism made for heady times and I relished every moment.

The key events in the country opened up sport beyond anybody's wildest dreams and contributed to increased levels of frenzied activity at Computicket. In November 1991 South Africa was chosen as the venue of the ATP World Doubles Final, our official re-entry to the world of international tennis. The tournament, held at the Standard Bank Arena where top seeds John Fitzgerald (Australia) and Anders Jarryd (Sweden) won the title, was followed by the Altech-Xerox open in which South African Wayne Ferreira lost the final to America's Todd Witsken. The world doubles were held in Johannesburg again during 1992 and won by Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde who went on to become the world's number one doubles pair.

More big sports news in 1992 was the return of Formula One Grand Prix racing to South Africa, sponsored by the Yellow Pages. Suddenly we were dealing with overseas agents who specialised in organising tours from virtually every country to the Grand Prix in whatever country it was held. Many of these agents were fascinated by Computicket and I made several friends among them. Sadly, the accommodation arrangements made for their clients, some of whom were booked into inferior hotels, caused great disappointment and many refused to come again. The drop in attendance of overseas visitors the following year reflected this problem.

July brought excitement on the soccer front when, fittingly, the first overseas team to tour was African, the Cameroons national side. Their first match was played at King's Park Stadium in Durban, where South Africa beat them 1-0, their second at the Goodwood Stadium in Cape Town where they won 2-1, and the final at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg where a multi-racial crowd of 55 000 fans saw the teams play to a draw. Later in the month, the Premier League Crystal Palace team was the first English team to visit since 1964. They played against Kaiser Chiefs in Johannesburg and the Orlando Pirates in Durban.

In 1991 the South African cricketers had been rapturously received in India, and in 1992 cricket mania hit the country when booking opened at Computicket for a series against India at home. We had been booking rebel tours for some years but those had stopped in 1990 when pressure had forced Mike Gatting to cancel the English visit. The visit of the Indians was the first official tour sanctioned by the International Cricket Board, and within the first hour of booking opening on 19 November for the one-day match at the Wanderers, 13 000 of the 15 000 tickets available (including the expensive R 70 and R 47 seats) had been sold. The demand was unprecedented, particularly from the Asian community.

The climax to the cricketing year came when South Africa went to Australia to compete in the World Cup, where they reached the semi-finals before losing to England. The night before the final, we went to the South African version of The Last Night of the Proms, sponsored by Nedbank and organised by Jenifer Williams at the City Hall, in aid of Lifeline. Michael Hankinson conducted the orchestra, and the atmosphere was tremendous. The cricketing fervour spilled over into the concert audience, and there was much flag-waving and the singing of traditional songs - 'We Are Marching to Pretoria' from the South Africans competing with 'There'll Always be an England' from the English expats friendly rivalry on the eve of the final which turned the 'Proms' into a real party.

But the most important news of 1992 on the sports front was the announcement that South Africa, expelled from the Olympic Games after participating in 1964, would be readmitted to this, the world's most significant sporting event.

Back in the show business world, Pieter Toerien presented Gordon Mulholland at the Richard Haines in his first one-man show, Gordon Bleu. Gordon danced, sang, and reminisced about his long career, and the opening night audience loved it. In the Alhambra, Rex Garner and Tim Plewman gave audiences much to laugh at with Rex's production of Ray Cooney's Out of Order, and in May Die Van Aardes van Grootoor returned to convulse audiences at the Leonard Rayne.

Michael Pertwee's raunchy farce Birds of Paradise, which had run for years at the old Academy Theatre, was brought back by Pieter Toerien in a new production by Rex Garner, starring Kryska Witkowska, Michael de Pinna, Jane Noble and Victor Melleney. It opened at the Alhambra in July. The play failed to draw audiences in Cape Town, but a much bigger blow for Pieter came with the failure of Six Degrees of Separation.

Written by John Guare, Six Degrees dramatised the true story of a young black man, posing as actor Sidney Poitier's son, who hoodwinked the social celebrities of New York. It had been voted Broadway's best play the previous year. Directed by Robert Whitehead and starring Fiona Ramsay and Graham Hopkins, with Pat Pillai as the impostor, the play opened on 10 October but, inexplicably, failed to take off. The Johannesburg run was cut short and the Cape Town season cancelled.

At a totally different level of outrageousness, The Rocky Horror Show, long banned in the country, came to the Nico in Cape Town and the Victory Theatre in Johannesburg, courtesy of Colin Law and Neil Lovegrove. Christopher Malcolm, who had played the original Brad opposite Julie Waiters' Janet in the first production of Richard O'Brien's cult musical, came to oversee the final details of the South African production. The official opening in Johannesburg on 9 June was a bizarre evening with the audience dressed up in appropriately grotesque outfits. This extravaganza of decadence featured Jeremy Crutchley as Frank N Furter, David Dennis as Riff-Raff, Lana Green as Janet, Bradley Mart as Brad and Craig Urbani as Rocky. Urbani would later hit the spotlight as the eponymous Buddy, and go on to play the role in that musical in London.

At the end of July, Jeremy Crutchley left the show (he was replaced by Ian von Memerty) to play the Duke of Windsor in I Was King, yet another piece of royal nostalgia by Royce Ryton. Crutchley was superb in this one-man piece, directed by Mark Graham for Pieter at the Richard Haines Theatre. Also in May, for the fourth year in succession, we booked for South Africa's 'mini-Woodstock', the Splashy Fen Folk Rock Festival. Held in a natural amphitheatre in the foothills of the Drakensberg, this Festival had become synonymous with progressive South African Music. Meanwhile, there was more good news when the British Musicians Union lifted its ban on their members working in South Africa.

Jazz came to the Zoo Lake in January with a free concert attended by more than 15 000 people of all races who came with their picnic baskets and had a thoroughly enjoyable time.

Indeed, this was very much the year of jazz. With the endorsement of SAMA, South Africa welcomed jazz musicians Sadao Watanabe from Japan, Klaus Kreuzeder from Germany and Jack van Poll from Holland, and we saw the return of several South African exiles, including Abdullah Ibrahim and Hugh Masekela.

At Sun City, directors Victor Ntoni and Rashid Lanie excelled themselves with their presentation of Journey Through Jazz \- Sax Appeal, featuring South Africans plus two Americans, which played to wonderfully enthusiastic audiences. There was a series of jazz specials at the Market, too, after which Sarafina returned for what was billed as its final season. (In October, at Arrant Singh's invitation, Graham and I went to the premiere of the film version in the presence of Nelson Mandela).

Sun City, throughout the year, showcased returning exiles in concert. The first of these, in February, was Hugh Masekela with special guests Sakhile and Bayete. Others who came were Johnny Clegg and Savuka, and Letta Mbulu and Caiphus Semenya. In December, the latter two, plus Masekela, his former wife Miriam Makeba, and Jonas Gwangwa, took the stage at the Standard Bank Arena- together on their home soil for the first time in thirty-two years. It was a memorable and historic occasion, which generated enormous warmth and kept the packed house there till after one in the morning.

On the more familiar front of extravaganzas Carlo Spetto, whose relationship with Sun International and all their venues now spanned many years, returned to Sun City to stage Escapades, which opened in March, the month in which, to my great joy, M-Net announced that, for the first time, we would see the Oscar ceremony only hours after it had taken place in Los Angeles. We really were returning to the real world!

Meanwhile, group after imported group arrived in the country on promotion tours and drew large crowds everywhere. The Australian group, Indecent Obsession, and Randy Crawford, were particularly popular and both promised to return, which they did. Indeed, when Mike Fuller brought Indecent Obsession in September to play Durban, Cape Town and Springs as well as Johannesburg, extra performances had to be added to meet the demand for tickets.

With South Africa now flavour of the month, small time promoters and phoney managements were climbing on the bandwagon and causing many problems. The cancellation of a much-trumpeted Boy George tour when the so-called management couldn't come up with the money, was just one of several such instances, and legitimate South African promoters closed ranks after I warned them against the pitfalls. Nothing, however, had prepared me or anybody else for the most dramatic non-appearance of the year.

I received a call from one Drapaniotis Panteli of Panteli Exclusive Imports and Promotions telling me that he had signed a contract to present the legendary ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov for two performances at the State Theatre and one at the Nico Malan in July. Intrigued by the thought that a man who had never promoted any entertainment before believed he could start with Baryshnikov, I visited him in his Sand ton offices to find that, apart from a desk, a fax machine and a few chairs, the rooms were bare.

Given the economic realities of the dancer's proposed visit, I returned to my own office in some despair and drafted what was a rare document for Computicket- a contract with a watertight cancellation clause, detailing the consequences if the tour failed to materialise after booking had opened. Apart from my suspicions about the impresario, I had another reason for concern. Graham and I had seen Baryshnikov in New York in 1986 and, even then, he had done little more than walk through a one-act modern ballet. If South African balletomanes expected to see him in his prime, they stood to be sadly disappointed.

A memorable day I would have preferred to forget was 17 June 1992, the day booking opened for Mikhail Baryshnikov and the White Oak Dance Project. The number of people queuing at the Hyde Park terminal alone would- if everybody bought one ticket only- have been sufficient to sell all the available seats. The problem was that those numbers were being repeated all over the country - about 10 000 people were queuing for about 3 250 seats. Since the system could serve about two hundred and fifty people a minute, it would be only a matter of a few minutes after booking opened that all the seats would be sold. And that is exactly what happened.

Then all hell broke out. The telephones started to ring, the radio and television interviews got under way. The public were outraged at what they perceived as a seam and minor riots erupted at Computicket branches when it was announced that there were no more tickets. I resorted to doing a print-out of where the sales had taken place and suggested in a radio interview that anybody who was dissatisfied could come to our offices and see on a second-to-second basis how the sales had been made.

Public rage turned to despair when, on 26 June, Mr Panteli informed me that 'because of the violence that was sweeping the country', Baryshnikov's management had cancelled his visit. Interestingly, this bombshell was dropped at the same time as Panteli was negotiating with Hazel Feldman for a performance at Sun City. The only person who wasn't surprised by the news was Pieter Toerien who told the press that Baryshnikov 'was not even aware that he was supposed to be touring the country at all'.

We were back in refund mode but this time, since our contract was watertight, Drapaniotis Panteli - to do him justice - honoured it and gave us a cheque for the double work load we had incurred. Clutching his cheque, I personally ran to the bank to get special clearance. About a year later, I read in the papers that this unfortunate soi-disant impresario had been involved in a love triangle and was shot dead by the jealous husband in the case.

The Johannesburg Musical Society, celebrating its ninetieth birthday, a unique achievement - also departed from its traditional classical repertoire for its birthday concert on 16 May, presenting The Red Dazzlers. This Cape-based group, founded in 1985, blended Gospel with traditional and secular music. It was rewarding to see the white, largely elderly and somewhat staid JMS audience take the group to their hearts after the first shock of their entrance in red pants, black shirts and red caps, led by Philip Dlabantu in a black outfit topped by an outrageous academic's mortar board.

PACT Opera, too, broke with the tried and trusted repertoire, albeit within the confines of tradition. In April they ventured into British modernism with Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice, based on Thomas Mann's famous novella. Directed by Neels Hansen, the production, designed by Peter Cazalet and brilliantly and innovatively lit by Stan Knight, was mesmerisingly beautiful. George Kok sang Aschenbach, and the non-speaking roles of Tadzio, the boy with whom Aschenbach is obsessed, and his elegantly watchful mother, were taken by Kimbrian Bergh and Dawn Weller-Raistrick of PACT Ballet.

In August, the opera company brought us an opportunity to see and hear Attila, a rarely performed work from the Verdi canon. Again, directed by Hansen and designed by Andrew Botha, the production boasted Nikita Storojev, for many years principal bass with the Bolshoi opera, in the title role, and American soprano Michele Crider, a regular with the Vienna State Opera, together with another American, Keith Olsen, Bulgaria's Ivan Konsulov, Rouel Beukes and Jannie Moolman. Also, in August, PACT Ballet staged the South African premiere of John Cranko's The Taming of the Shrew, the first full-length Cranko work to be seen in the country of the late choreographer's birth. The leads were danced alternately by Dianne Finch/Jeremy Coles and Leticia Muller/Johnny Bokang. The ballet was staged by Jane Bourne.

Dance was the choice for the reopening of the Civic Theatre, rebuilt at a cost of some R 132 million. I was a member of the committee, comprised of various members of the theatrical community and city councillors, who had deliberated about the opening programme for some months. At a meeting in June, the theatre governors announced! that the theatre would officially reopen on 15 September, two months earlier than originally anticipated, and the opening attraction would be Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theatre of Harlem- a tremendous coup, pulled off with the co-operation of the Market Theatre- Alan Joseph at the helm - which extended the invitation and, throughout, acted as hosts and intermediaries.

The engagement of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, to perform a repertoire of some twelve works over two weeks, was announced at a press conference at the Johannesburg Art Gallery on 21 July. A simultaneous announcement was made in the lobby of the United Nations Building in New York. The press was handed copies of a letter from Nelson Mandela carrying his personal endorsement and were told that Nedbank would be the major sponsor, with the bank's Dr Ivan May involved in all aspects of the tour to ensure that the money brought the best artistic dividends to the community. The tour would include master classes for aspiring dancers, and Arthur Mitchell would hold seminars for artists and arts institutions. In Mitchell's own words, the two-fold objective of the tour was 'to demonstrate the level of excellence and co-operative spirit that can be achieved when individuals, especially children, are given equal opportunities to excel, and to share our world-renowned artistry with all members of the South African society ....' To this end, a joint working party was formed between the Civic Theatre's board and the country's democratic cultural institutions, a step that was hailed as a milestone in the development of the performing arts in South Africa.

Almost simultaneously with the arrival of Arthur Mitchell and his advance party, we opened booking for the Russian Ice Ballet, subtitled 'Bolshoi on Ice', which would open at the Cresta Ice Arena on 24 September, presenting three one-act ice ballets, followed by an ice spectacular featuring Igor Bobrin and an all-star cast.

The night of 15 September, which coincided with the 106th birthday of Johannesburg was, indeed, an historic occasion at the Civic. Making good Councillor Cecil Bass' claim that the new Civic would be able to host the best productions that South Africa could offer, and that it would wipe out the past in its accessibility to all peoples, the opening was the most 'politically correct' gathering yet seen in Johannesburg. The foyer was crammed with personalities from every walk of life and enhanced by the wondrous fashions on display that included many people in high-styled tribal dress. The Dance Theatre of Harlem, the first internationally acclaimed serious arts organisation to visit the emergent new South Africa, lived up to its reputation and was a particularly appropriate choice for the new Civic. As Raeford Daniel wrote, 'Dance, the language of celebration and joy, is becoming an increasingly important discipline in the variegated tapestry of peoples and cultures that is becoming known as the new South Africa'.

On a personal note, the evening was especially memorable because I renewed my acquaintance with Frederick Franklin, now the DTH's artistic advisor, whom I had last met when he danced with Danilova at His Majesty's in 1957. And it was a privilege, too, getting to know Arthur Mitchell, a gentleman of the old school who soon had everyone eating out of his hand. A former principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, Mitchell had established the DTH in 1969 as a personal commitment to the people of Harlem after the assassination of Martin Luther King, aiming to provide the economically and culturally disadvantaged young with opportunities.

In his company, coming home, were three South African dancers who had found their opportunity with the DTH, Augustus Van Heerden, Felicity de Jager and Lavene Naidu.

From this time on, given impetus by the FNB Vita Dance Umbrella, the Dance Factory initiative and the Standard Bank National Festival of the Arts in Grahamstown, dance moved into the forefront of the move towards integration in South Africa's performing arts.

The 1992 Grahamstown Festival unveiled several dramatic works that found acclaim and travelled further afield. PACT Drama's Death and the King's Horseman, written by Nigerian playwright and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka and directed by François Swart, examined the European failure to understand African culture. Featuring Owen Sejake, Nomhle Nkonyeni, Peter Se-Puma, Dale Cutts, Jacqui Singer and Michael McCabe, and choreographed by Nomsa Manaka who had spent two months in Nigeria learning at first-hand about the Yoruba culture, the play opened at the Alexander in late July.

Another Festival attraction which came to Johannesburg was the National Theater of the Deaf from the USA, who presented two plays In a Groove and Farewell My Lovely -at the Andre Huguenet. Those who bothered to go found the works inspirational, but unfortunately there weren't too many of them. However, Paul Slabolepszy's one-man tragicomic tour de force, The Return of Elvis du Pisanie, which had won the Pick of the Grahamstown Fringe award, opened at the Rosebank Theatre where it was so successful that it transferred to the Laager in September. Directed by Lara Foot, it won a multitude of further awards.

In September, yet another Grahamstown highlight opened Upstairs at the Market. Multi-talented William Kentridge directed the Handspring Puppet Company in Woyzeck on the Highveld, an adaptation of Georg Büchner's classic which combined puppets and film animation, giving Kentridge's charcoal drawings a three-dimensional life of their own. In 1993, the production - which had won Kentridge the Breytenbach Epathlon at home - was invited to festivals in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and the UK, and then opened the Henson Foundation Second New York International Festival of Puppet Theater.

Come September, too, Johannesburg was offered Arts Alive!, a mini-festival spread over a range of venues. With numerous attractions on offer, large crowds flocked to the main events but, alas, several of the smaller shows played to virtually empty houses.

Outside of the work that originated at Grahamstown, the interesting range of plays at the Market included the world premiere of Athol Fugard's Playland. This opened on 16 July with John Kani and Sean Taylor (both brilliant) as the night-watchman and the former conscript who play out a confrontation on the fringes of a travelling fairground in a Karoo town on New Year's Eve 1989- a pivotal moment for South Africa. Barry Ronge described the play as 'an intense, inspiring event, the most significant work Fugard has done in decades ... To miss seeing it would be to miss out on a moment of maturity that is going to change the theatre completely.' The play, directed by Fugard, also marked his sixtieth birthday.

Upstairs at the Market, Hellhound, James Whyle's innovative and gory adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard Ill, was directed by Neil McCarthy with Dan Robbertse and Michelle Botes. This was followed by Barney Simon's production of Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman. The Chilean playwright called it his gift to South Africa in a message expressing admiration for the Market Theatre and hailing Simon as 'one of the most inspired and interesting directors in the world today'. But the play, with Terry Norton, Robert Whitehead and Ramolao Makhene, was one of Barney's less successful productions. Interestingly, Robert North's ballet of the same name but with an entirely different theme, was performed by the PACT Dance Company at the Alexander later in the year.

PACT presented Romeo and Juliet, for the first time a setwork for all Transvaal schools, black and white. Four thousand members of the instant audience, sponsored by Nedbank, saw Ilse van Hemert's first production in English, which opened at the State Theatre in March and moved to the Alexander. The title roles were played by recent UCT graduates David Germond and Emma-Jane Mezher, with Peter Se-Puma as Paris, David Clatworthy as Tybalt, Soli Philander as Mercutio, Nomhle Nkonyeni as the Nurse, and Dale Cutts as Friar Lawrence.

In an unusual act of co-operation, Radio 702 joined with PACT to present a splendid revival of the rock 'n' roll musical Grease at the Alexander Theatre. Directed by Richard Loring, the show starred Clare Marshall, Paul Ditchfield and Mark Richardson, while the rest of the young and talented cast included Cole Cameron, Gina Shmukler, Lisa Melman, Gilda Blacher and Michele Levin, all graduates of the Wits School of Dramatic Art.

There was more fare for the young and the very young when Joyce Levinsohn's Johannesburg Youth Theatre was launched in its new home in Parktown at the end of March. Rain almost stopped play on the outdoor stage constructed for the occasion, descending in the middle of a rendition of 'Let Me Entertain You', but neither the performers nor the audience were deterred from continuing the show.

At the Rose bank Theatre, veteran Bess Finney starred as The Harum Scarum Girl, a poignant look at the life and times of Ellen Terry. Directed by Drummond Marais, Bess brought this legendary star of the British stage vibrantly to life. And at Richard Loring's Sound Stage, rapt audiences flocked to Ticket to Ride, a musical tribute to the Beatles.

With Mannie Manim now ensconced at the Wits Theatre, there was a great deal of activity, including the opening of a new venue, the Amphitheatre, which was Mannie's brainchild. However, the first production, Nicholas Ellenbogen's Nick goes Native, directed by Lara Foot with Patricia Sanders and Greg Melvil, was disappointing. Later in the year, Ellenbogen's Theatre for Africa productions, Kwamanzi and Elephant of Africa, which returned after a well-received season at the Edinburgh Festival (and a special performance for the Royal Family at Balmoral Castle), were more successful at the Wits Theatre, as was a reworking of Pieter-Dirk Uys' Paradise is Closing Down, directed by Lynne Maree. In an intriguing gender shift, two of the women were rewritten as gay men, played by the author and Chris Galloway. On 25 September, Margaret Inglis turned eighty in London. When she came to South Africa later in the year for the DALRO Awards, I arranged a surprise - a large chocolate cake complete with eighty candles to be wheeled in to the lunch at the Wanderers Club. Peggy's multiple attempts to blow out the candles resulted in her white silk blouse changing its hue fairly radically, and her hug of appreciation once the candles were extinguished transferred much of the chocolate to my light suit. Neither my jacket nor her blouse ever recovered from this encounter. Shirley Firth and Percy Baneshik both wrote loving tributes, with Percy reminding newspaper readers that Peggy had been the first woman announcer on the SABC, back in the days when they were required to wear full evening dress in the studio for the reading of the news.

As for the DALRO Awards - the Computicket award went to Antoinette Kellerman for her performance in Dieter Reible's production of Die Keiser. And Margaret Inglis herself was on hand to present the Margaret Inglis Award for best supporting actress in an English-speaking role to Nomhle Nkonyeni for the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. Andrew Buckland won dual honours for best actor and best new South African play for Bloodstream and Louis van Niekerk captured his sixth best Afrikaans actor award for Die Keiser.

Broadway's longest-running musical, The Pulitzer Prize-winning A Chorus Line, finally reached South Africa and played all the major cities before opening in Johannesburg on 7 October. It was directed by Troy Garza for PACT, the Johannesburg Civic Theatre Association, CAPAB and NAPAC, but despite the excellence of Lana Green and Graham Clark in the leading roles and four imported and scintillating American dancers, the production failed to live up to expectations. More revivals brought Michael Atkinson in The Importance of Being Oscar to the Leonard Rayne and Patrick Mynhardt to the Pieter Roos auditorium at the Civic with A Sip of Jerepigo twenty-three years after he had first presented the show there. The third venue at the Civic, the Youth Theatre, opened on 4 November with a new discovery (who, as far as I know, hasn't been heard of since) named Heidi Edeling, directed by Sandra Prinsloo in Pure as the Driven Slush. And the Andre Huguenet, refurbished by the management of Tim and Cathy Plewman and Eric Lyall reopened with Ray Cooney's classic farce Uproar in the House featuring Tim, Malcolm Terrey, Paul Andrews and former Miss South Africa Diana Tilden-Davis.

A flurry of activity took place at the Alhambra complex in December. On 11 December Casper de Vries, the King of Afrikaans Cabaret, returned with his bilingual one-man show Small Talks at the Richard Haines; Rex Garner directed himself, Jeremy Taylor and Tselane Tambo (daughter of ANC stalwarts Oliver and Adelaide, making her South African debut) in Harold Brooke and Kay Bannerman's comedy, The Earl and the Pussycat, at the Leonard Rayne, opening 15 December; and on 19 December, Neil McCarthy and Robert Whitehead opened at the Alhambra in the nail-biting thriller The Woman in Black, adapted by Stephen Mallatrat from Susan Hill's novel. Marc Urquhart directed.

In Cape Town, David Kramer and Taliep Petersen had three musicals running at the same time, which must be some sort of record. Poisson was on stage at the Nico Malan, Fairyland at the Dock Road Theatre and Crooners at the City Lights Theatre at the Holiday Inn.

But the highlight of the year for me was twelve days I will remember all my life. In those twelve days, thanks to the inspirational efforts of Hazel Feldman, Sun City hosted French composer and keyboard wizard Jean-Michel Jarre's music, laser and light spectacular which officially opened Sol Kerzner's most extravagant fantasy, The Lost City and its Palace Hotel; the Million Dollar Golf Tournament; the official opening of the Valley of the Waves and the Miss World Pageant, showcased in a glittering presentation televised to some eighty countries.

Between them, these events would display Kerzner's newest and most lavish hotel to nearly a billion television viewers worldwide. Forty-five thousand people each paid R 90 to see Jean-Michel Jarre's show and- as the advertisement had it- watch 'the world explode'. Jarre joined forces with nature to explode the African sky in a spectacular techno-fantasy of sound and light, illuminating the features of the Lost City and the Palace in an unbelievable display. It was the most ambitious production ever undertaken by Sun City entertainment in terms of sheer scale and technology.

The twelfth Million Dollar Golf Tournament tee'd off on 3 December, for the first time fielding the top five men on the Sony world ranking - Nick Faldo, Fred Couples, Jose Maria Olazabal, Bernard Langer and Ian Woosnam- plus John Cook, Nick Price, Ernie Els, Craig Parry and David Frost. It turned out to be a contest fraught with drama and controversy. Nick Price, while playing the eleventh hole, instructed his caddie to move a sponsor's signboard, deemed in the local rules to be an immovable obstruction. On the conclusion of the round he was given a two-shot penalty. He erased his signature, handed in his card unsigned and was disqualified. On the same day the other Nick (Faldo) erroneously signed his card with a four instead of a five on the 18th hole and was also disqualified. What was set to be one of the best Million Dollar finishes to date turned into a promoter's nightmare. Within half-an-hour the country was abuzz with the controversy of the disqualifications. The players, particularly front-runner Price, would never knowingly have broken the rules and were devastated as David Frost went on to win his third million dollars in four years.

Booking for the Miss World pageant on 12 December sold out in an hour. To cope with the demand for seats, the dress rehearsal the day before was opened to the public. The creative team was entirely South African - choreographer Carlo Spetto, set designer Anthony Farmer, costume designer Gloria Andrioli, musical arrangements by Bryan Schimmel and the whole overseen by TV producer I director Bill Faure of Combined Artists Co who, with his colleagues Mark West and Jon Sparkes, was charged with the task of translating the stage spectacle into eye-catching TV. Bill fashioned a Lost City theme which effectively demonstrated Kerzner's mind-boggling concept.

Among the many judges and celebrities who, with journalists from all over the world, gathered to watch eighty of the world's most beautiful girls go through their paces, were Ivana Trump, Billy Dee Williams, best-selling author Sidney Sheldon, television 'gurus' Alan Whicker and Robin Leach, model Jerry Hall, Richard Branson and Bo Derek, Joan Collins, Brigitte Nielsen and the elegant and gifted British actress, Charlotte Rampling (Jarre's wife).

Miss Russia was crowned queen amid African splendour in a world class show that caught the attention of the media, which had ignored the event for years. I was sitting behind the British mastermind and organiser of the event, Julia Morley, when the TV cameras focused on her during the interview just before the announcement of the winner this led to a multitude of messages on my answer machine from friends as far afield as England and New Zealand, who had seen me at Miss World. Fame at last! Meanwhile, meeting the celebrities in the Royal Ballroom after the show was as ever, for me the eternal stargazer, absolutely thrilling.

The theatrical year ended as usual with a Janice Honeyman panto, this year Sinbad 's African Adventures. It was the first Christmas show at the new Civic, and featured P J. Powers with Bill Flynn and Michael Richard as the Dames. Peter Pan, the title role played, most unusually, by a male actor (Simon Jones), flew for Jill Gerard's People's Theatre, his flying wires exposed because of lack of funds to camouflage them.

Christmas at the State Theatre brought François Swart's production of Gigi. Under the guidance of musical director Graham Scott, Philip Godawa, John Hussey, Shelagh Holliday Sandra Duncan and, in the title role, Julie Hartley (alternating with Geoffrey Sutherland's daughter Natasha), moved merrily through Lerner and Loewe's enchanting musical. There were capacity houses at the State, too, for PACT Opera's 'Singing Christmas Tree', delighting audiences for the eighth year in succession.

So, 1992 drew to an end - a year of triumphs and failures and, sadly, one in which I lost many friends, whose passing left our theatre the poorer.

On 27 January, two days after her 101st birthday, Gwen Ffrangçon Davies died in London. She had lived to become a legend in her own lifetime, and her death brought rich tributes. A couple of weeks later Yvonne Bryceland died of cancer in London and was deeply mourned by her friends and colleagues in South Africa. Forever associated with the works of Athol Fugard, whose female characters she realised so brilliantly, she had told Percy Baneshik in an interview that she never believed she could fully immerse herself in a role unless it was from Fugard's pen. She gave the lie to her own words when she carved an impressive niche for herself at Britain's National Theatre in a variety of dramatic roles.

At the end of January Harry Ligoff died. One of the nicest, most patient and helpful of men, he was the first of the indispensable lighting technicians in the Johannesburg theatre, lighting hundreds of shows before lighting designers like Mannie Manim had even been born. I spent many hours in his lighting box over the years, watching him work his magic. His last position, before retiring after a very long career, was as resident lighting electrician at the Civic Theatre.

Ninety-year-old Marlene Dietrich died in Paris in May and, in July, the theatre suffered a shock when Geoffrey Sutherland died at the age of fifty-one. His contribution to ballet - he was resident choreographer and producer for NAPAC- as well as to musical theatre throughout the country as choreographer, director and designer, was enormous, and he was the driving force behind many major hit shows. Prolific and innovative, his output was prodigious and, a former dancer himself, he received the Nederburg Award for Ballet for his contribution to dance in Natal.

July also brought the death of Joan Blake. Always remembered for her on-stage partnership with Adam Leslie for whom she immortalised 'The Hostess with the Mostes' and 'Beryl from Ermelo' among many others, Joan's talent and versatility went far beyond the confines of intimate revue - the brassy Australian barmaid in Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, the drug-addicted mother in Long Day's Journey into Night - to name but two. She was one of our most distinguished senior actresses, a professional and a lady in the grand dame mould and, like the handful of others of her ilk, has not been replaced.
CHAPTER SIXTY

ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK

Nineteen ninety-three was, officially, the year that I was supposed to retire. However, since there was not yet a successor in place, I continued as managing director of Computicket. In 1994 the board of Interleisure eventually agreed to my setting my retirement date as 16 August 1994, thus rounding off forty years to the day since I had opened Show Service. Naturally, their decision satisfied the sentimental side of my nature.

From the onset of my last year at the helm, the floodgates opened. Light entertainment artists - good, bad and mediocre - came from abroad to perform in theatres, clubs and stadiums all over the country. The sports scene, too, was transformed with cricket teams from Pakistan, the West Indies and Australia playing legitimately on South African soil and Kyalami once more hosting the Nashua Formula One Grand Prix. Later in the year, 60 000 excited soccer fans watched the English FA Cup winners, Arsenal, face their compatriots, British Premier League Championship holders Manchester United at Ellis Park in an International Soccer Festival sponsored by United Bank.

A double header - Arsenal vs Orlando Pirates and Manchester United vs Kaiser Chiefs was played at the FNB Stadium on 28 July, after which the tour moved to Durban where the Chiefs met Arsenal. The public relished the novelty of the different and many visitors, while Computicket's systems worked happily overtime to accommodate them. At the same time, the new freedom also led to a two-way flow, with South African artists appearing in Asia, Australia, Europe and Britain. The large venues in the major cities, notably the Standard Bank Arena in Johannesburg, were overwhelmed by the plethora of pop stars who descended on the country, leaving the parents of local teenagers many millions of Rands poorer. On a sourer note, we received many complaints about ticket prices, which now started at R 40 rising to a top of R 100, and there was much correspondence in the press about the strain on the pockets of pop music lovers. Nonetheless, the avalanche of performers largely continued to draw audiences.

Among the many, and most popular entertainers were Irish pop star Chris de Burgh who came in January for Big Concerts (Attie van Wyk and Mango Groove manager Roddy Quin) whose tour grossed R 6 million; Gospel star Ray Boltz; and female vocalist Randy Crawford. International dance acts, too, took off on the mushrooming club circuit, which hosted 2 Unlimited, Undercover and Rage, the latter playing special no-alcohol matinees for under-eighteens. New York-based reggae artist Shaggy came, as did Bad Boys Blue (who, with several other groups, played the Rand Easter Show before touring), Nigerian rap artist Dr Alban (a qualified dentist!), mega-stars Duran Duran, Laura Branigan returning to tour countrywide and Australian-based rock supergroup Crowded House. Most of them delighted capacity crowds. Bonnie Tyler, who had sold more than eighteen million records worldwide, was a hit at the Standard Bank Arena, while one of rock's premier acts, Foreigner, with legendary guitarist Mick Jones and singer Lou Gramm, attracted some 20 000 fans to their performances. Other pop visitors were British chart-toppers Smokie, the international double bill of Atlantic Starr and UK dance group Imagination, and, also from the UK, Asia and OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark). BZN came for a return tour, as did Indecent Obsession.

There were a few sombre moments beneath the joyous surface, notably when The American Boys' Choir cancelled in the face of the St James Church massacre, but, in the main, the country rocked and rolled on a sea of unprecedented exultation.

Classical music pressed on in the face of the pop onslaught. On the nights of 29 and 30 April, a unique event took place at Johannesburg's City Hall when the National Symphony Orchestra joined Abdullah Ibrahim and Ekaya in the Nedbank Symphony of Jazz, attracting probably the most non-racial and politically correct audience in the history of that staid building. The NSO and TPO, meanwhile, continued with regular concert programmes and, by September, the NSO announced that, because of the popularity of the weekly symphony concerts, they would henceforth perform on Wednesdays as well as the traditional Thursdays. Earlier in the year a select group of South African classical violinists had profited from the new dispensation when they were able to attend master classes given by Christian Altenburger, one of the world's leading practitioners.

The opera scene, too, was full of variety. For their first opera season at the new Civic, PACT staged Rigoletto with Russian baritone lvan Ponomarenko, Hanli Stapela as Gilda and Sidwill Hartman as the Duke; Alberto Cupido sang the title role in Verdi' s majestic Don Carlos with Stefka Evstatieva as Elizabeth and, on the lighter side, Kristine Ciesinski and Mimi Coertse alternated as The Merry Widow, opposite John Hurst's Count Danilo. At the State Theatre, the company brought back Maria Stuarda, and mounted the South African premiere of Mozart's Idomeneo. American Douglas Ahlstedt sang the lead opposite Marita Napier, George Kok directed. In November Alistair Dawes, visiting from Covent Garden, directed Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci with Sidwill Hartman, Marita Napier, Ivan Ponomarenko, Hanli Stapela and Evgenij Demedjiev.

PACT Ballet gave the South African premiere of the ballet version of The Merry Widow, choreographed by Ronald Hynd and Robert Helpmann. It played at the State Theatre and, for a limited season, at the Civic. Later in the year, the company gave Johannesburg audiences an opportunity to see Cranko's The Taming of the Shrew at the Civic. In October, as part of their thirtieth birthday celebrations, PACT Ballet mounted Cinderella at the same venue.

The occasion, sadly, coincided with the death of Dr Dulcie Howes, the much-loved and profoundly respected pioneering doyenne of the dance, who had nurtured South African ballet and its dancers and had created the University of Cape Town Ballet. At the opening night on 14 October, we were asked to stand for a minute's silence in her honour.

It was an extraordinary week for dance. Two nights previously at the Civic, the Taipei Folk Dance Troupe (among dozens of international competitors at the Roodepoort Eisteddfod) revealed the beauty and exoticism of classical Chinese dance, Zimbabwe's Tumbuka Dance Company appeared at the Market and the PACT Dance Company was at the Alexander.

South Africa showed increasing signs of developing into a filmgoing culture. In the year to July 1993 thirty-eight new cinemas had opened and Ster-Kinekor cinemas alone had recorded upwards of three million attendances, with Sundays the third biggest day for business.

In April, Swedish actress Liv Ullmann, the distinguished star of eleven films by Ingmar Bergman, attended Johannesburg's International Film Festival at which her own debut film as director, Sophie, was shown together with two others in which she had starred - Midwalk, and Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata, which co-starred the director's namesake, Ingrid. And a unique film first was the screening at the State Theatre on 25 April of Buster Keaton's silent classic The General, with music played live by the Transvaal Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Michael Hankinson.

On the local theatre scene Neil Lovegrove and Colin Law presented Diane Wilson at the Victory in a Vita Award-winning performance as Willy Russell's Shirley Valentine, directed by Murray McGibbon. At the Laager, Paul Slabolepszy had another hit with Mooi Street Moves starring Martin le Maitre and Seputla Sebogodi- another South African play which would tour extensively abroad. On 23 February, David Kramer and Taliep Petersen's Fairyland, with its recreation of the music of District Six, finally arrived in Johannesburg after a two-year sell-out run at the Cape Town Waterfront's Dock Road Theatre. It played to full houses at the Market until the end of May.

Israeli impresario Pashanel, a friend of long standing, brought the first artists from the People's Republic of China to visit South Africa. The Chinese Acrobatic Circus was full of wonder, a dazzling spectacle filled with miraculous feats and a feast of colour and talent, but attendances at the Standard Bank Arena were disappointing.

Matching the changes in the country, the ongoing process of change within the structures of the performing arts began to manifest themselves strongly during 1993. At the Civic Theatre Michal Grobbelaar retired and was replaced by Alan Joseph, who had been general manager of the Market Theatre since 1986. I had first met Alan when he stage-managed the Lindberg's production of The Black Mikado in 1976. We renewed our association when he became senior stage manager at the Market and later production manager. In 1996, he would be appointed chief executive officer of PACT.

Later in the year Janice Honeyman, like Joseph long associated with the Market, was appointed deputy executive director of the Civic with a brief to make it an integral part of the community. Janice, who was brimming with ideas, was quoted as saying, 'I have a bubble of enthusiasm which I'm finding hard to contain, but it is a massive task to turn the theatre into a community centre.' She wasn't to know then exactly how hard it would prove to be.

April at the Civic saw another kind of change when Nelson Mandela officiated at the opening day of the ANC's Culture and Development Conference. The ANC president was given a rapturous reception by a chanting, toyi-toying crowd and, for the first time in its history, the Civic resonated to freedom songs.

The result of the ANC Conference was the formation of a fifteen-member board of trustees appointed to oversee a proposed Foundation for Arts and Culture. Among the appointees were Nadine Gordimer, Dr Ivan May of Nedcor, future education minister Professor Sibusiso Bhengu, lawyer Linda Zama, Cosatu deputy chairman Welcome Mthimkulu, and Hazel Feldman, whose resignation from Sun City to go into business for herself marked another significant change in the entertainment world. Her connection was not entirely severed, though, as she was contracted by Sun City to do the second Miss World at the end of the year, and to handle Elton John's return in December.

It was a year of conferences during which different cultural groupings sought to carve out a path for the future which would meet the needs of a multi-ethnic community. Feelings often ran high and factions proliferated as those in favour of retaining the Eurocentric alongside the Eurocentric argued with those who wanted to throw out the past and create a new indigenous culture.

While plans, discussions and negotiations were ongoing, there was little doubt that the old structures were disintegrating or, at the very least changing. The convulsions that were to shake and, eventually, disband and regroup the performing arts councils began to be felt, and the first victim of an economy whose stretched resources were going into a wider network of pockets, was NAPAC. It which had been in financial trouble for about five years, had to retrench around two hundred personnel from all its creative departments, and proceeded on a skeleton programme - a forerunner to the disbanding of NAPAC as it had been and its new slimline incarnation as the Playhouse Company.

There were further problems at the Durban Playhouse in September when a fire broke out in the wardrobe and the wings before a performance of Madam Butterfly. Determined not to disappoint their public, the cast crossed the road to the City Hall and performed the opera minus sets and costumes.

PACT's immediate contribution to a new cultural era was to install Waiter Chakela at the Windybrow to oversee bringing the 'people's culture' to Johannesburg theatre on a regular basis. The orgy of debate continued, with much media coverage and, at the time of writing in 1997, the big question 'whither arts and culture?' had not been satisfactorily answered.

Meanwhile, on 21 April, during the ANC's conference at the Civic, which took place during the day, a new Mbongeni Ngema blockbuster opened to occupy the theatre at night. Called Magic at 4 am it was the first presentation by a black playwright/ composer at the Civic. The opening night seemed as though it might go on until 4 am. so long and tedious was the saga of a hostel dweller who dreams of becoming a world boxing champion and models his life on that of the legendary Muhammed Ali. The show starred Bhoyi Ngema and Leleti Kumalo whom Mbongeni had made a star through Sarafina and had subsequently married. The show was not a success, but the evening brightened up with the surprise appearance on stage of Muhammed Ali himself. I met him briefly, but the personal thrill was diluted by his saddening physical state- he was suffering from Parkinson's Disease, caused by blows to his head during his boxing career.

South Africa was about to lose one of its finest actresses with the decision of the versatile Sandra Duncan to return to England. Her farewell role, impeccably played as ever, was appropriately challenging - she starred opposite Michael McCabe in François Swart's production of A Delicate Balance.

The cast for Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize-winning play was completed by Jacqui Singer and Dale Cutts. Over at the Windybrow, PACT and DALRO presented the Windy brow Arts Festival, of which the hit was Jozi Jozi Guide written, directed, choreographed and composed by John Ledwaba. The show took off and went on to play many seasons at the Market, in Cape Town and abroad.

The fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! was celebrated by a joint NAPAC/CAPAB/PACOFS production of this classic musical comedy. Philip Godawa directed an all-star cast headed by Luciano Zuppa and Juanita Kruger, and the show opened at the Durban Playhouse on 22 April before going to the Nico Malan in Cape Town where it played in tandem with the Sixties musical Hair, directed by David Matheson, and the Sand du Plessis in Bloemfontein - a venue which never opted to join the Computicket system.

In an attempt to encourage future audiences, Jill Gerard, in conjunction with Nedbank and Penguin Publishers, took a tour of Peter Rabbit and Other Tales to Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban. Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days made it onto the ice in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town with the return of the ever-popular Holiday on Ice. On quite a different note, Johannesburg theatre audiences saw Leonard Schach's Baxter production of Beecham at the Civic's Youth Theatre. It turned out to be his last production in that city. By then, a handsome bronze bust of Leonard sculpted by Naomi Jacobson had been installed in the foyer of the Civic, a gift from the Johannesburg Jewish Board of Deputies, making a gesture of goodwill to the theatre with a tribute to South African theatre's most distinguished director.

Beecham starred Michael Atkinson, who had also been seen, with Shelagh Holliday and John Hussey in Hugh Whitemore's engrossing West End hit, The Best of Friends. Directed by Mark Graham for Pieter Toerien, this stimulating play, based on the letters and writings of George Bernard Shaw, Sir Sydney Cockerell and a remarkable nun Dame Laurentia McLachlan, dealt with their three-way relationship, conducted through correspondence.

A wide variety of offerings came from Toerien. Robin Hawdon's adaptation of Frenchman Marc Camoletti's long-running West End comedy Don't Dress for Dinner was directed by Rex Garner with Clive Scott and Mike Huff. Rupert Gavin's An Evening with Gary Lineker, directed at the Alhambra by its British author, was entertaining, but mystified the public who simply didn't understand the title (Lineker was an English soccer captain), and the hope that this show would draw in some sports lovers failed to materialise.

In June Malcolm Terrey appeared solo in a fine interpretation of P.G. Wodehouse's 'silly ass' Bertie Wooster. Jeeves Takes Charge was devised by Edward Duke and directed by Alan Swerdlow at the Richard Haines. Another success at the Richard Haines was The Doowah Girls \- Gina Shmukler, Julie Hartley and Tonya Koenderman - who emulated singing groups from the Forties to the Nineties. The show was devised and directed by Kevin Feather.

Pieter's big hit of the year, however, was James Sherman's Beau Jest. This hilarious American play about a Jewish family was directed by Rex and Tammy Garner with Michele Maxwell, Michael de Pinna, Yael Farber and Gary d'Allessandro, and opened at the Theatre on the Bay before transferring to the Leonard Rayne. Then, with the Alhambra fully occupied, Pieter took the play to the Youth Theatre at the Civic, the first time in many years that he had a production there.

Rex Garner celebrated his half-century as a man of the theatre by directing, and co-starring with his old friend Gordon Mulholland in, Ray Cooney's farce It Runs in the Family, which opened at the Alhambra on 7 November.

Over at the Market, Vanessa Cooke directed an unusual production of Jean Genet's The Maids with Robert Whitehead, Matthew Krouse and Robert Colman playing in drag. This was staged in the Laager, as was Steven Berkoff's Decadence. Directed by Fred Abrahamse with Fiona Ramsay and Michael Richard, the play was so successful that it transferred to the main house when Hilary Blecher's production of Daughters of Nebo, which came from the Grahamstown Festival, failed to draw audiences. Upstairs at the Market, Jerry Mofokeng directed Bill Curry, Nomhle Nkonyeni and James Mthoba in a superb and poignant production of Boesman and Lena.

Mega-talented Shirley MacLaine \- singer, dancer, Academy Award-winning screen actress, best-selling author and political activist - whom I had seen perform in Las Vegas and New York came to Sun City in July. Her press conference was a catastrophe as a group of young journalists who hadn't done their homework had no questions to ask.

On stage, this magical and fabulous dynamo, aged, incredibly, sixty, welcomed her audience to 'Jurassic Park' and asked them to ignore reports of her age - after all, each of her legs was only thirty years old. Miss MacLaine bewitched both critics and fans. I had rarely seen such warmth, love, indeed adoration, emanate from an audience.

The abortive press conference paid off for me. I had spoken to her there and told her she was opening on my birthday, and she asked me to come around after her show - what a wonderful birthday gift from a superb artist!

Another, quite differently superb artist, the Ambassador to Bapetikosweti, the irrepressible Evita Bezuidenhout, greeted her sister Bambi, newly returned from exile, in an hilarious one-night stand at the Civic Theatre. Pieter-Dirk Uys described The Poggenpoel Sisters (his temporary farewell to South Africa before he left for abroad) as a 'one-woman Commission of Enquiry into the status quo of the Homelands'.

Three months into the year, an article in The Star informed South Africans of a unique concert to be organised by boxing promoter Don King and scheduled to take place in Newtown in a giant marquee, built under instructions from Sol Kerzner. The show was to star Michael Jackson on a double bill with Diana Ross, and Mick Jagger in a supporting act. Elizabeth Taylor would be the compere and Jean-Michel Jarre would transform Johannesburg with his lighting spectacular. Ticket prices would range from R 500 to R I 000. Telephone chaos broke out in our offices as thousands of people called to beg for tickets. I, however, had seen the date of the newspaper- April Fool's Day!

In August, though, journalist Peter Feldman announced in all seriousness that mega-star Michael Jackson was indeed to visit South Africa, brought by Anant Singh of Awesome Entertainment, to give two performances on dates and at a venue to be announced. In subsequent days stories appeared describing how 150 tons of equipment would be transported on two 747 cargo aircraft, that additional equipment would arrive by freighter, and that a crew of a few hundred people would be needed to set the whole thing up. At Computicket we were inundated with calls from as far away as Reunion, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Zaire.

Then we started to read of cancellations and the rescheduling of Jackson's concerts in Bangkok and Singapore. Anant Singh called a press conference to announce that the tour was official, and Jackson would definitely perform at Ellis Park Stadium on 30 September and 1 October. Booking would open on Tuesday 31 August.

Jackson mania hit South Africa and fans queued from the night before booking opened to buy tickets priced at R 60, R 90 and R 150. Pandemonium reigned at some of the Computicket terminals where the crush of patrons was so large that customers were unable to get to other shops in the malls. Within two hours we had sold almost 70 000 of the 120 000 tickets, and by the end of the first day's booking, takings amounted to some R 12 million.

Graham and I, together with my brother Mossie and sister-in-law Joyce, left two days later for a trip to Moscow and St Petersburg. I followed Jackson's tour on CNN television, watching as he electrified 40 000 people in Taipei which, like his Bangkok and Singapore concerts had been postponed but rescheduled. The singer's fraught tour was plagued by allegations that he had sexually abused young boys. What I didn't know was that on 5 September South African newspapers had reported that the trip was in jeopardy, that Anant Singh had gone to Singapore, and had reported on his return that Jackson's South African dates were subject to change.

On 11 September the on-off South African leg of the tour took another turn with a denial from Jackson's managers that he had a contract to perform in the country at all - later investigation proved that he did indeed have one.

On the night of 14 September, the entertainer exploded onto the stage under freezing drizzle in Moscow where, a few days earlier I had watched $ 150 tickets being handed out to surprised people in the streets. I was happily unaware that in Johannesburg Peter Feldman had reported the cancellation of the South African visit. It was in Paris, where we arrived to catch a midnight flight to Johannesburg, that I opened a newspaper to read that the tour was off. I almost hyperventilated thinking of the refund nightmare to come.

Back home, it was reported that Nelson Mandela had personally telephoned Jackson asking him not to disappoint his fans. The plea was to no avail, and the public was informed that, because of the vast logistical problem of making refunds, they would have to write in. In the end, thanks to the co-operation of Nedbank, an arrangement was made to refund money at branches of the bank throughout the country.

The Michael Jackson fiasco haunted me for weeks and I began to wonder whether I wouldn't have been better off retiring in August of that year after all. However, an extravaganza at the other end of the musical spectrum, and one I was able to attend before my trip abroad, really did take place -the first visit to the country by a major world class symphony orchestra since the Israel Philharmonic tour of 1974. Sponsored by Nedbank, the ninety-eight strong London Philharmonic Orchestra with their conductor Franz Welser-Mӧst came, in the words of their manager, on 'a never to be forgotten tour'. Despite high ticket prices of R 119, the LPO's first Johannesburg concert was sold out within the hour. The orchestra had undertaken an immensely strenuous tour, travelling throughout the country giving workshops as well as concerts, and ending with a concert at Sun City on 8 August. The visitors loved it, their audiences were ecstatic, and they came again in 1994.

The 1993 Vita Awards ceremony at the Civic Theatre marked the first presentation of the Vitas instituted in memory of Moyra Fine. They were presented by her husband Azriel (Izzy) Fine, and I was moved and honoured to be the first recipient of the Moyra Fine Award for Outstanding Contribution to Theatre. Gibson Kente received the first Moyra Fine Award for Lifetime Contribution to the Theatre.

September and October brought a variety of choice on the entertainment scene, and a couple of landmark occasions. Miriam Makeba performed on the stage of the Pretoria State Opera in early September, giving two concerts and, for the first time, Johannesburg hosted an international Jazz Festival. Presented as part of the Arts Alive programme, the participating musicians included Jackie McLean, the world's leading alto saxophonist with his band, Jasper van't Hof's Dutch quartet, Brazil's Moreira the Fourth World with vocalist Flora Purim (Moreira's wife), ace American guitarist Herb Ellis, Darius Brubeck with his group Gathering Forces II and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler.

The supreme balladeer Al Jarreau, winner of four Grammy Awards, brought his 'Boogie Down' tour to South Africa for the first time, opening outdoors at the Johannesburg College of Education. Graham and I met Al at a party given by promoter Glen Broomberg, who suffered the misfortune of inadequate planning for box-office and security facilities at the College sports field. This resulted a large percentage of the crowd simply walking in to see this consummate artist without having paid a cent of admission.

From 23 October the Gypsy Kings broke the long drought at Sun City with their unique sound. The vibrant flamenco jazz and rock group (comprised of two families, the four Reyes brothers and their three cousins the Baliardos brothers) were hugely successful- unlike Jewish American comedian Jackie Mason, whose Broadway show had failed to generate as much enthusiasm as expected earlier in the year.

Echoing my own idiosyncrasy about dates, Richard Loring always opened his shows on the eleventh of a month to coincide with the original opening date of the Sound Stage. On 11 October, he presented Forever Plaid, a musical which, helped by a very talented cast (Mark Richardson, Bruce Blanchard, Robert Finlayson, Louie B. Cowan) lovingly recreated the bygone Fifties. In the four years since its opening, Richard's venue had proved extremely successful. Helped by his wife Jeanette and his right-hand, assistant producer Debra Batzofin, Richard had created an ambience in which customers always felt welcome. He had built a customer base of some 25 000 people and could claim to play all his shows to near one hundred per cent capacity.

Also, in October, Moira Blumenthal presented David Mamet's riveting and highly controversial two-hander Oleanna. Terrence Shank directed Guy de Lancey and Janine Eser as the university professor and the female student who accuses him of sexual harassment. At the Upstairs at the Market Barney Simon directed Can Themba's The Suit, adapted by Mothobi Mutloatse. The production, which starred Sello Maake ka-Ncube, Stella Khumalo, Job Kubatsi and Alistair Dube, was playing in London on the day in 1995 when Barney Simon died at the age of sixty-three - another monumental loss to South African theatre.

With the new political climate in the country, protest theatre - but not protest \- was dwindling away. The Cape Town production of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Nico brought the Christian fundamentalists out in force, picketing the theatre outside and letting off stink bombs inside. None of this deterred the capacity audience from attending.

On 5 November we lost the first senior staff member of long-standing when Rina Minnaar, our Pretoria regional manager, passed away. Rina had joined me in the Show Service days and, as well as proving a loyal and committed member of Computicket's team, had been a true friend to all the staff. It was a sad day.

On a happier note, we demonstrated Computicket's new ticket vending machine to the press and our management clients and previewed our innovative telephone credit card system. Known as Teletix, this was developed by our marketing director, Mike Joubert, and was set to be launched the following year.

The last Computicket Award to be given during my tenure went to Antoinette Kellerman for her performance in Die Tragedie van Cymbeline (Shakespeare's Cymbeline). The year was a triumph for Paul Slabolepszy, whose portrayal of Elvis du Pisanie won him a best actor award from DALRO and Vita. He also picked up best play and director Vitas for that play, as well as additional awards for Mooi Street Moves.

Computicket acquired a whole new constituency of customers from the Italian community of South Africa when A. C. Milan came to play Orlando Pirates. Together with Arsenal and Manchester United they contributed to a milestone year for soccer, which reminded me of how significant a part the game had played in my career. As a cash business Computicket had benefited greatly from the regular and large sales of tickets to football matches yet, while we welcomed the revenue, it had also been the source of an ongoing headache over the years.

Unruly queues and undisciplined crowds had caused many security problems at our terminals; poor marketing and haphazard organisation involving sudden changes of venues and dates led to chaos everywhere. In addition, the National Soccer League officials were very remiss collecting their cheques and seemed quite unaware of the many thousands of Rands in advance sales that we were holding on their behalf.

Corruption and scandal were- and remain- rife. Somehow, though, the game has survived and has gone on to flourish within an international context.

The November/December season brought Shirley Bassey to the Standard Bank Arena- her first visit to South Africa as opposed to Sun City. As ever, this unique and dynamic performer gave a great show, but poor organisation resulted in less than capacity attendance.

On 23 November, Janice Honeyman's pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk, directed by Maralin Vanrenen, opened at the Market, while PACT's production of Buddy opened on 2 December as the Civic's Christmas attraction. Based on the life of musician Buddy Holly, who died young in an accident and become an iconic legend, it went on to play all over the country, becoming one of the most successful musicals of recent years. Directed by Pierre van Pletzen, it starred Craig Urbani (Terence Reis alternating) in the title role. Christmas at the State Theatre also supplied a riotous success with the British musical, Me and My Girl. Edward Baker-Duly and Lana Green led the cast in Lisa Kent's production, with outstanding musical direction by Graham Scott, by then the country's best conductor of musicals scores. PACT contributed a third festive show for the season, working in conjunction with People's Theatre to stage The Wizard of Oz at the Alexander Theatre.

My last Sun City Christmas season as managing director of Computicket took me, first, to the second Miss World contest to be staged there. The event, which took place on 27 November, was once again masterminded by William C. (Bill) Faure with Mark West and Jon Sparkes (the team that had staged the Miss South Africa Beauty Pageant at Sun City in August), and was televised worldwide. Miss India was crowned Miss World in the presence of dozens of celebrities, among them Pierce Brosnan, Jacqueline Bisset, Grace Jones, LA Law's Blair Underwood, Lou Gossett Jr, Twiggy, Kung-fu star Jackie Chan, former Miss World Gina Tolleson, Juliet Prowse, novelist Frederick Forsyth, super-model Christie Brinkley and South African TV host Dali Tambo. The guest artist on hand to entertain us was George Benson, who had last visited Sun City in 1982.

My brother and sister-in-law, Sam and Barbara, with their daughter Dana, had come out from London for the wedding of our niece Elana (Mossie and Joyce's daughter), and came with us to Sun City for the jamboree. My niece Dana could hardly believe the parade of the famous that she was seeing and, thanks to Hazel, in some cases meeting, but I have to confess that her youthful excitement was matched by my own. It was, unbelievably, fifty-eight years since I had fallen in love with Grade Fields, and my enthusiasm for the stars had not yet deserted me!

As usual in December, I followed the Million Dollar Tournament players round the course. This year, the golf was played without incident, and I was delighted that Nick Price, so unfortunately disqualified the previous year, went home with the prize.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

FULL CIRCLE

The biggest, the best and the most meaningful show business event of 1994 had as its star not an entertainer but a politician. On 10 May, Nelson Rolihlala Mandela was inaugurated as President of the Republic of South Africa in a ceremony which held the nation and the world riveted and, for once, almost united in adoration and admiration.

Before a crowd of thousands, traditionally hostile leaders rubbed shoulders. Cuba's Fidel Castro and America's Al Gore, Israel's Ezer Weizmann and the PLO's Yasser Arafat, along with Prince Philip, Benazir Bhutto, a range of African heads of state and scores of recently returned exiles, watched as Mandela took the oath. The country shed a sentimental tear as jets flew overhead trailing the colours of the new South African flag and the crowd rose to cheer their new leader and to sing the dual anthems, 'Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika' and 'Die Stem'.

A little over two weeks earlier, on 27 April, a public holiday had been declared and most theatres had closed while South Africans held their collective breath and prayed for peace as they stood in lengthy queues to cast their votes in the country's first democratic election, which returned the African National Congress with a resounding majority. We played our role in the historic inauguration, Computicket having been appointed the official agency to distribute the thousands of tickets for the ceremony and the celebratory concert which followed.

The previous evening, Graham and I had attended a special show at the Market where extracts from South African theatrical gems were played for an audience that included Hillary Clinton, the Gores and the Reverend Jesse Jackson. The theatre was closed to the public, but visitors to the neighbouring restaurants and pubs were amazed to see six black stretch limos (flown in from the USA) and a team of rifle-toting American security men stationed on the roof.

The following day, at the Union Buildings, we joined the excited crowd who, along with millions of television viewers at home and abroad, watched as the dignitaries, local and imported, filed in.

After the formalities, the VIPs retired for lunch while the rest of us stayed to watch the entertainment, entitled 'Many Cultures, One Nation'. Organised and directed by Welcome Msomi, the performances included jazz, choral singing, and actors in a mélange of styles intended to please everybody in what Archbishop Desmond Tutu had dubbed, memorably, 'the Rainbow Nation'. Graham and I had brought with us a modest pack of sandwiches which our Asian and African neighbours thought so inadequate that they invited us to share their food - a gesture of comradeship that symbolised the atmosphere of a new age.

We left the concert early to get to our car which was parked at a 'Park 'n' Ride' at the entrance to Pretoria to discover that the bus drivers who should have been waiting to take us back had disappeared. We had no alternative but to walk the considerable distance from the Union Buildings almost to the Pretoria Prison. En route we found ourselves in a 'funeral' procession in which the deceased was 'apartheid', and we toyi-toyied all the way, unable to move out of the procession because of the barbed wire which confined us to one path. Ninety minutes later, overwhelmed with emotion and with enough memories to last a lifetime, we arrived at our car.

On the conventional entertainment stage, the year began with the return of OMD who, joined by Mango Groove, were the big success of January. The concerts played to capacity audiences who helped make the events into a party, and the management, Big Concerts, who brought Depeche Mode in February, had reason to be delighted. In February Showstar Promotions brought comedians Foster and Alien, Bad Boys Blue on a second visit, and the Norwegian band A-ha, the darlings of the teenyboppers. The Superbowl presented Natalie Cole, daughter of the incomparable Nat, famous for the digitally contrived recordings of herself duetting with her late father. In her show, her father was seen and heard on-screen singing 'Unforgettable', accompanied by Natalie live on stage. It was both wonderful and eerie.

The stream of high-priced entertainers flowed and flowed. Scottish comedian and TV star Billy Connolly came for John Sparkes of Combined Artists in March, the month that brought diminutive English comedian and TV star Ronnie Corbett. The hit dance duo Twenty 4 Seven played the clubs for Mike Fuller, and Jamaican reggae star Shabba Ranks, proclaiming that he 'had to come to Africa ... this is Home Sweet Home!!', played to good crowds countrywide.

In April songwriter, singer and guitarist Bryan Adams wowed his fans at Sun City, Johnny Clegg and Savuka, by then international stars, especially in France, commandeered the Civic with their show 'Heat, Dust and Dreams' (also the title of their new CD). June brought the arrival of the bald and brawny brothers Richard and Fred Fairbrass, known as 'Right Said Fred'. Delirious crowds packed the club circuit to hear them sing their smash-hit, 'I'm Too Sexy'.

Among the last bookings handled by Computicket under my management were those for the return visit of Dr Alban (with Haddaway), UK rock band Jethro Tull, singer Joe Cocker, and Sting. The names were getting bigger all the time, with visits planned by, among many others, UB40, Wet,Wet,Wet, Whitney Houston, Phil Collins, Joan Armatrading, Bon Jovi (who would break all previous box-office records with attendances of 182 000 over four performances), Meatloaf, Def Leppard and, for Hazel Feldman, The Rolling Stones and, most extraordinarily of all, the world's most famous tenor, Luciano Pavarotti.

I had spotted the audience potential for such entertainment as far back as January 1986 when over 100 000 people had turned up for 702's The Concert in the Park at Ellis Park, featuring only local artists. Now, as my departure from Computicket drew ever nearer, everything I had dreamt of was coming true in the new South Africa.

In early March I had gone to Cape Town to be present at the opening night of Yours Anne, Leonard Schach's production of the poignant play with music based on Anne Frank's diaries. We couldn't know that this would be Leonard's last new production in South Africa before his death but, in retrospect, it was fitting that his cast should have included such old friends and colleagues as Michael Atkinson and Diane Wilson.

Leonard Schach, dapper, urbane, witty, cultivated, and an internationally respected practitioner of his art died in Israel on 20 November 1996, shortly after the publication of his own book of theatrical memoirs, The Flag is Flying. His contribution to South African theatre was incalculable. I organised a memorial service for him in Johannesburg to which many friends and colleagues came to share memories and pay tribute, among them Shelagh Holliday, Michael McCabe, Mannie Manim, Des and Dawn Lindberg, Louis van Niekerk, Judy Page, Mary Mitchell, Aubrey Louw, Charles Stodel, Kevin Maybury, Michael Hobson, Robyn Karney, Fiona Fraser, Anthony Farmer and Michal Grobbelaar. Leonard's passing left me personally with a great gap in my life and marked the end of the great old guard - Gwen Ffrangçon-Davies, Andre Huguenet, Leontine Sagan, Leon Gluckman, Taubie Kushlick and Dulcie Howes. On that memorable night in Cape Town, however, these sadness's were still in the future.

In 1994, though, the profession past and present suffered two other losses. On 7 August Berdine Grunewald, aged eighty-one and long in retirement in the Cape, died. I had many memories of her marvellous performances in both English and Afrikaans during the early part of my career. She had not only enhanced stages around the country but had founded the first actors trade union in South Africa which became Actors' Equity and, finally, PAWE.

The death of François Swart from cancer in January, at the age of only fifty-six was a blow to his friends and colleagues. It was also a severe loss to the theatre, particularly to PACT Drama for whom he had used his gifts so prodigiously for so many years, giving audiences countless impeccable productions of the classics as well as working in other genres such as opera and musicals, and with equal facility in English and Afrikaans.

In this, my retirement year, I seemed to experience a time-warp as revivals, spanning decades, sprung up everywhere. At the Civic's Youth Theatre, Karoly Pinter directed The Glass Menagerie with Jana Cilliers, Jocelyn Broderick, Andre Odendaal and Martin le Maitre in a production which failed to capture the fragile emotions of the piece. Pieter Toerien brought Nunsense, which was proving habit-forming, back to the Alhambra, and a revival of The Monkey Walk, this time starring Stephen Jennings and Susan Danford, opened at the Richard Haines. PACT's repertoire included revivals of Pygmalion, with Leila Henriques as Eliza and Graham Hopkins as Professor Higgins - a rare double since he'd played the role in My Fair Lady- Key for Two with Erica Rogers, directed by Alan Swerdlow, Fiela se Kind directed by Ilse van Hemert at the State Theatre, with Gail Regan, and yet another season for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Richard Loring's We'll Meet Again was back at the Sound Stage, Des and Dawn, in conjunction with the Civic, produced another revival of Godspell in the Tesson while, at the Pieter Roos, Jerry Mofokeng directed a new production of Athol Fugard's Nongogo. Fugard's Hello and Goodbye, directed by Lara Foot with Dorothy Ann Gould and Lionel Newton played Upstairs at the Market, to whose main house Sophiatown paid a return visit.

New work included Clare Stopford's striking production of Scenes from an Execution at the Market. Set in 16th-century Venice, it focused on a female artist, commissioned to paint a massive canvas to commemorate the Battle of Lepanto, who determines to demonstrate the vaingloriousness of men's wars. Starring Aletta Bezuidenhout, it was a riveting theatrical experience which garnered many awards.

Paul Slabolepszy was back in the limelight with Pale Natives, about nostalgia and soul-searching during a reunion between five middle-aged former musicians. Directed by Bobby Heaney, the play went to the Baxter before playing a second season at the Market. At the Laager, Susan Pam-Grant and DJ. Grant's Take the Floor, directed by Lara Foot with Molly Seftel, Susan Pam-Grant, Joss Levine, Basil Appolis and Mark Hoeben, was a highlight of the year. Entering a world of fantasy, candy floss and clowns, it took its characters on an emotionally liberating journey of self-discovery through ballroom dancing. This innovative and enchanting piece played all over the country as well as in Montreal and at the Edinburgh Festival.

Tom Kempinski's powerful two-hander Duet for One focused on a female musician struggling, through psychotherapy, to come to terms with multiple sclerosis and its implications for her life. Widely believed to have been inspired by the illness of cellist Jacqueline du Pré it was directed by Malcolm Purkey with Lesley Nott and, in a somewhat inappropriate piece of casting, John Kani as the psychiatrist.

Other new work included Pieter Toerien's presentation of The Fan by Bob Randall. A world premiere, the play starred Moira Lister as an actress whose life is taken over by the unwanted attentions of an obsessed fan (Jeremy Crutchley). Mark Graham directed. And in April, Pieter-Dirk Uys once again hit satirical nails firmly on the head with his pre-election show, One Man, One Volt.

The dawning of a new age was enhanced by a trip to the Civic the day after the President's inauguration for the opening of Hair, directed by Janice Honeyman. This watershed 1960s musical, synonymous with the American peace movement and the Sixties drug culture was first seen in South Africa in Cape Town in 1993, and its Johannesburg production caused much excitement. An all-South African cast, led by Craig Urbani, Terence Reis, Kate Normington, Gina Shmukler, Samantha Pea and Luciano Zuppa, drew a first-night audience of wide cultural diversity.

At the Windybrow, John Matshikiza (son of King Kong composer Todd), directed an exciting production of Julius Caesar. The cast featured Louis van Niekerk as Caesar, Sella Maake ka-Ncube as Mark Antony, Owen Sejake as Brutus and Magi Williams as Calpurnia. The production caught the public imagination and audiences of all races poured in. It became an annual event, albeit with cast changes.

Television man Mark West of Combined Artists went into the theatre business and hit the jackpot with A Handful of Keys which opened at the Civic's Youth Theatre in June, directed by Alan Swerdlow. Devised, written and compiled by Bryan Schimmel and the multi-talented Ian van Memerty, the show was born over coffee and pecan pie in the Figtree Restaurant at Sun City in November 1993, when Bryan's mother, Maureen Schimmel, had suggested that Ian and her son get together and create a show centred on a pair of grand pianos. The result was an original, entertaining and loving musical tribute to popular composers and exponents of the piano, dazzlingly performed by the duo. A Handful of Keys was one of the biggest hits of the last decade of my career, performed regularly for almost three years and winning many awards, including the Vita for best musical.

On 1 June 1994, I announced to the staff of Computicket and to the press that I would retire officially on 16 August. In mid-July I left for London to attend the wedding of my nephew Trevor, Sammy and Barbara's younger son, before joining Leonard to repeat our three-shows- a-day routine in a glorious echo of the 1952 theatre tour.

I got back to a strenuous and quite unreal round of theatregoing, 'partying' and overwhelming tributes before, during and after my retirement day.

Early in August I saw Megan Wilson's production of Don Gxubane Onner die Boere, by Charles Wilson at the Arena in the State Theatre. Since it co-starred political activist Ramalao Makhene with stalwart of the traditional Afrikaans theatre, Louis van Niekerk, this was a dramatic event in more ways than one. The production was dedicated to Eghard van der Hoven in recognition of his fiftieth year in the theatre.

The last opening night before my retirement took me to the Alexander on 9 August to see PACT's production of Part One of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches. American playwright Tony Kushner's sprawling, ambitious and inventive play offered a panoramic view of American gay life in the climate of the Reagan administration and under the shadow of AIDS. The play audaciously features as a main character the ruthless, manipulative and unscrupulous lawyer, Roy Cohn, a closet homosexual who cut his professional teeth in the McCarthy era, became a famously successful litigator and rose to prominence in the American government before dying of AIDS. Sean Taylor played Cohn and Fred Abrahamse directed the Pulitzer prize and Tony Award-winning play.

I suspect I was one of the few people who remembered that Roy Cohn had come to Johannesburg many years before to act on behalf of Iva Schlesinger in her divorce from her millionaire playboy husband John, the son of African Theatres pioneering tycoon, L.W. Schlesinger. Cohn was later disbarred by the American Bar Association after his client Mrs Schlesinger successfully sued him for the return of money she had lent him which he had refused to pay back.

The last film premiere I went to during my tenure at Computicket was that of Disney's The Lion King held at the Cresta Film Complex. The cinema foyer had been converted into a jungle for the occasion and was home for the night to a family of baby lion cubs whose presence proved the greatest attraction of the evening.

The very next day I joined the chief executives of Interleisure at Kirkman's Camp in the Mala Mala Game Reserve for a 'bosberaad', masterminded by Mike Egan. On the final evening of our get-together, my colleagues spoke about our years together and commented on my 'individual' style of management. I wasn't too sure how to take that, but it was interesting to hear how I was viewed by others! This all took place in the open, round the boma, under the stars after we had seen a real lion standing majestically on a rock, guarding his lioness and her nine baby cubs. In this quite magical and unreal atmosphere, I spoke of my many years in the job, recalling the wonders of all the extraordinary people I had met, of our triumphs and our disasters, and of how the seeds of Computicket had been planted in exactly that spot twenty-three years earlier when I had taken Nick Mayo, managing director of Computicket in the USA, to Mala Mala to discuss the possibilities of his system for South Africa.

On 16 August I left my office, unable to believe that forty years had passed and that my responsibilities would now be somebody else's, while I would start a new chapter of my life. Immediate reality was kept at bay with a visit that night to the Market, where Graham and I saw the opening performance of the return season of The Suit, and the following night when we attended a performance of Travels With My Aunt at the Leonard Rayne. This dramatisation of Graham Greene's novel by Giles Havergal, directed by Mark Graham for Pieter Toerien and starring Michael Atkinson with Roger Dwyer and Alan Swerdlow, had begun its run at the Theatre on the Bay in July.

Aside from my huge official farewell party at the Civic Theatre, I was given a lunch by The Star to mark my forty years of writing and designing the live theatre advertising page, at which I was presented with a mounted facsimile of the Tonight supplement's story which had announced my retirement and carried a caricature of me. Then Peter Bacon, the managing director of Sun International, hosted a lunch for me. In thanking him for the wonderful gifts I had received from his company at my farewell party, and for all the happy memories of our long association, I was again overwhelmed with a sense of disbelief that it was all over- at least from a professional standpoint.

I was kept busy reading and replying to over five hundred personal letters from managements, Computicket staff and other colleagues as well as from many customers who had stood in my queues since the Show Service days. Several of my staff sent poems written to me, and I was showered with presents and mementoes from all sides. Glen Clack, the managing director of Nu-Metro, honoured me with a gold card for life enabling me to go to their movies on complimentary tickets- an invaluable gift- and I was both touched and highly amused to be sent a presentation bottle by Campari, whose nationwide advertising campaign happened to be 'I drank my first Campari in Benoni.'

A couple of months after the excitement, upheaval and mixed emotions of retirement were beginning to die down and I was starting to think about writing this book, I was invited to a luncheon at the Market Theatre with chairman Grahame Lindop, artistic director Barney Simon, managing trustee, Mary Slack and general manager Michael Maxwell at which they presented me with a wondrous gift that I treasure. Conceived by Barney and made by artist Stephen Hobbs it is a large and handsome antique ledger with brass lock and key that once belonged to the City of Johannesburg Market Department, into which Stephen incorporated in a most ingenious manner written and photographic memorabilia and tiny souvenirs of the Market and the artists who worked there.

So, borne away on a flood of memories and memorabilia, I bade farewell to that part of my life which had taken me to some 4 000 opening nights and had necessitated my being on-line every minute of the day, watching every aspect of the business - cash security, staff performance, data lines and the system itself. I had dedicated myself to a quest for perfection, even though I knew that there is no such thing and, although the world I serviced was a fantasy one, the work I did for it and the advice I gave to managements was based firmly in reality. Figures do not lie and one of my strengths was that over forty years I accumulated the numbers which offered a pretty accurate guide to the types of shows which, historically, had done good business.

Much of my working life was dominated by computer printouts which detailed every ticket transaction and which, to the disbelief of some and the amusement of others, I carried with me everywhere I went. I did this because, if a theatre manager called to tell me that a patron had lost a ticket, left it at home or put it in the washing machine, I could trace the seat number. On many an occasion I went cold as my pager bleeped with just such an emergency as the curtain was about to rise on a show, and I was left to sneak out and find a telephone.

Computicket was, indeed, a unique organisation. For twenty-three years we employed no publicity or public relations officer, nor did we have an advertising budget, yet the name became a household word because of our personal relationship with the media. Though we were not an advertising agency, I controlled advertising budgets for all the theatres in Johannesburg and was trusted to use the money as effectively as possible. My first task each morning was to design the daily advertisements, changing times, quoting reviews and, until I had done so, as they learnt to their cost, my staff- for whom life was often a nightmare - dared not speak to me for fear of one of my temper tantrums.

Nonetheless, despite my irascibility, born of obsessive attention to detail, not to mention the traumas, hysteria and chaos, my management style was hands on and my door was open to everybody. Indeed, I did my best to play psychologist, marriage guidance counsellor and father figure to any member of my staff who came to me with a problem.

I was counsellor, too, to many of the theatre managements with whom I worked so closely, and my advice to them was always product, product and more product. Like Shakespeare I truly believe that 'the play's the thing'. I have continued to believe passionately that the live arts have a purpose: to entertain, to inspire, to educate, and to reflect current society.

I retired in a climate of great change, uncertainty and flux and, though I did not and will not ever leave the world of theatre from which I have always derived such joy, the one aspect I was not sorry to leave behind was the stress. This was induced by the multiplicity of functions we served, and the inevitable quota of difficult situations I faced, from staff fraud, fly-by-night promoters, out-of-hand queues and, of course ... refunds!

By the end of 1994, sustained by the rich memories of my career and a future which included a busy life serving on several theatre committees and acting as a consultant, I found myself back where I started standing in the queue

e.

Diane Wilson (15 years old) with Brian Brooke - 1956 "The Reluctant Debutante"

Diane Wilson and Shelagh Holliday in "Fallen Angels". CAPAB DRAMA 1982

"Fallen Angels" with Diane, Shelagh and director Michael Atkinson. Capab Drama 1982
 SABC production of Noel Coward's "Brief Encounter" with Marlene Dietrich.

Left to right. Colin Fish, Kenneth Baker, George Korelin, Marlene, Pat Sanders, Diane Wilson, Helen Braithwaite, Beverly Pierce and Pamela Murray

 Celebration which Diane Wilson created for the CAPAB company - 1984.

Back row l-r. David Clatworthy, Mark Graham, David Dennis, Dawid Minaar. Front row l-r, Diane Wilson, Jennifer Steyn, Vicky Bawcombe
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in the small mining town of Benoni, South Africa in 1928, Percy Tucker has devoted his life to nurturing and furthering the live arts and entertainment in his native South Africa and, in so doing, has forged mutually productive relationships with creative artists and managements across Europe, Britain and the USA.

The breadth of Percy's interests, ranging from his first love – the theatre – through classical music in all its forms to ballet, modern dance, popular music, variety and spectacle, saw him become an integral figure in the show business industry in his country as advisor, councillor, mentor, organizer, impresario and innovator.

Internationally, he is known, above all, for the founding of Computicket, the world's first fully operative computerized, centralized ticket-booking system, which he introduced in South Africa in 1971. For this concept and its realization, Percy Tucker has been extensively honoured as it changed forever the way tickets for entertainment was marketed worldwide.

Percy's unique combination of passionate commitment to the arts with his commercial vision, business acumen and marketing skills has brought him recognition, love and respect that he never sought, and a richly fulfilling life which he treasures.

Since his official retirement in 1994, Percy has published his autobiography-cum-history of the South African theatre, Just the Ticket! and remains actively involved in the entertainment industry as advisor, lecturer, board member and researcher, and continues to travel the world, ever alert to new horizons.
Percy has received the following awards and accolades during his distinguished career

1976 Marketing Man of the Year by the Institute of Marketing Management, South Africa

1993 The Moyra Fine Vita Award for lifetime contribution to theatre in SA

1994 On his retirement from Computicket he was made Life Patron of Civic Theatre

First 'life friend' of Market Theatre

Further honours by The Star newspaper and Nu Metro Cinema Organisation

1997 Honoured by Computer Week, as perhaps the first business visionary in SA to recognise an opportunity arising from Networking Technology.

1998 Honoured by Box Office Management International (USA)

1999 Rotarian Vocational Service Award for outstanding service to the community in his chosen vocation.

2000 Computicket was included among the Top 100 Best creative ideas of the 20th Century, by The Star newspaper.

2002 Lifetime Achievement Award by Theatre Managements of SA.

2004 Computicket was chosen as one of the top 10 Great South African Inventions Exhibition held at MTN Science centre, Canal Walk, Cape Town. This exhibition also toured South Africa.

2005 Honoured by Rotary International with the 'Paul Harris Fellowship Award', their highest honour for his services nationally and internationally in changing forever the face of the marketing of entertainment.

2007 Fleur de Cap special merit award for Lifetime Contribution to South African Theatre.

