Press: NEVER TOO NAKED at the Fugard

Pieter-Dirk Uys is Bambi Kellermann. The show is called NEVER TOO NAKED. The scene is the Fugard Studio Theatre.

Angola may have richest woman on the continent, but South Africa has its most famous white woman – Evita Bezuidenhout. She also has a younger sister, Bambi Kellermann, who is the first person to encourage fake news about herself, knowing that the truth would be too unbelievable.

Uys has always been careful to balance his two most famous creatures: Mrs Bezuidenhout, part of the culture of her land since 1981 and true to her Afrikaner roots and ego, has no sense of humour and regards irony as an enemy; Madame Kellermann on the other hand wears her humour as an expensive aura and blandishes her irony as a successful weapon of mass distraction.

While waiting on the stage of the Fugard Studio for the arrival of her sister, Bambi shares the ups and downs of a life well-lived and loves well-shared; a boeremeisie, who started her long walk to freedom by leaving Bethlehem in the Orange Free State for Vienna in Austria. She was dazzled by the big world, hiding her fears behind her new underworld creation called Bambi. Yes, she was an uber-stripper on the Reperbahn in Hamburg during the 1960s. In other words: naked. Yes, she was hailed as one of the grand horizontals of the Northern Hemisphere during most of the last century – usually also naked except for her Chanel No 5 perfume. And yes, she will be in at the Fugard Studio this month and next, to share the naked truth of her story for the first time. As in most fairy tales, she marries a German aristocrat; as in most true horrors, he turns out to be a nightmare.

Evita Bezuidenhout’s lawyers have told Bambi's lawyer that as reconciliation is the only solution for the future of South Africa, she and her sister must lead by example and publicly reconcile. They haven’t spoken to each other for over 30 years.

"What a relief," giggles the former stripper. "The lawyers warn that the next time we will be together in the same room, one of us will be in a box. If Evita Bezuidenhout is in that box and I walk into the room, she will get up and leave!” Don't wait till that happens. Come and be the witnesses at this impeachment of the most famous white woman in South Africa by her most infamous sister. Never too naked? Keep that in mind. You might find quite a surprise in store.

NEVER TOO NAKED is at the Fugard Studio Theatre for a three week season from 24 March to 11 April 2020 with tickets from R150 through www.thefugard.com or 0214614554. Age restriction: 12.