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Casper de Vries

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Casper de Vries
Born (1964-06-01) 1 June 1964 (age 60)
Pretoria, South Africa
Occupation(s)Actor, comedian, entertainer, composer producer, director
Years active1986–present

Casper Johannes De Vries (Afrikaans pronunciation: [ˈkɐspər də fris]; born 1 June 1964) is a South African actor, comedian, entertainer, painter, composer, director and producer. He has gained a significant following among South Africa's Afrikaner population as well as Afrikaners living abroad. More recently due to his work on Comedy Central Africa he has also gained popularity among English speaking South Africans. He has both South African and Dutch nationality. Besides Afrikaans, he is fluent in Dutch.

Background

He was born and raised in Pretoria where his parents owned a toy shop. He attended Hoërskool Silverton where he was known as Cassie, and went on to study drama at the University of Stellenbosch. His shows are very popular amongst Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans and he even held shows in the London Palladium, a city where a lot of Afrikaners reside. Recently Casper has also started to perform in English to appeal to a larger fan base both local and international.

Comedy Style

Casper de Vries uses satire, blue, character, observational, sketch and word play comedy styles in his stage performances, and he is very outspoken on topics such as humanity, religion, social norms, language and politics.[1]

Live shows

His professional career started in 1986 with Hallo Suid-Afrika (Hello South Africa), and has been on-stage year after year until he started performing his one-man shows in 1997 where he started gaining major success. Here is a list of Casper's one man shows:

  • Walgwors (1997)
  • Wetter (1998)
  • Toet & Taal (1999)
  • Laat Daar Lag Wees (2000)/(2001)
  • DiMensie (2002)
  • Die Hits (2003)
  • Snaaks Genoeg (2004)
  • My Wêreld (2006)
  • Mondig (2007)
  • Broeders Ancestors (2009)
  • Gaan Groot (2010)
  • Vark in hel (2011)
  • Casper Goes Khaki (2013)

Film Appearances

  • Haak en Steek as Blertsie du Toit and Hanno Gelderblom
  • Alec to the Rescue (1999) as Train Steward
  • Soweto Green (1995) as Adrian Fluit
  • Sweet 'n Short (1991) as George Weedle
  • Taxi to Soweto (1992) as a Telkom Engineer
  • Kwagga Strikes Back also known as Oh, Shucks-here comes UNTAG (1990) as Jaap Van den Ploes

Characters

De Vries has characters that he portrays himself in his live shows and on TV:

  • Oom Kallie Marie - An old Afrikaner that represents the old Boere-Folk and is very old fashioned. Married to Tant Anna. Has a gay son from a previous marriage called Karel-Jan.
  • Greetje Appelmoes - A Dutch woman who always gives advice. Made her debut on Devries. Has three children called Mooitje, Booitje and Vrooitje.
  • Montelle Jansen van Rensburg - A homosexual ex-flight attendant for SAA. Made his debut as Mara in the show Toet en Taal.
  • Blertsie du Toit - A mentally disabled young boy. Made his debut in the Haak en Steek series on the Casper Rasper Show.
  • Hanno Gelderblom - A man from Kempton Park, drinks Klipdrift from the bottle and makes weird noises. Father of Orpa Gelderblom who sang a duet with him on Noot vir Noot. Made his debut on the Casper Rasper Show as the manager of an old-age girlgroup called Die Jerry-Hattricks.
  • Patience Candida April - Ex-prostitute and retired alcoholic from Cape Town. Lost her father at a young age. Has a son called Moses. Made her debut in a sketch called Hoer ry die boere on the Casper Rasper Show.
  • Renier Ferreira - Head of the VKTA and organizer of Ikayezi. Made his debut on My Wêreld.
  • Gizelle Serfontein - News reader, presenter and porn star.

Television

Casper's Live shows have been featured on South African television channels like SABC 2 and kykNET and more recently Comedy Central Africa since 1986.

He wrote, produced and starred in a 3-series comedy variety show, Die Casper Rasper Show (2001–2003) and a soapie-spoof Haak & Steek (2003/04). More recently he became the host of Doen met 'n Miljoen!, the Afrikaans version of Deal or no Deal. In the early 1990s he also hosted an America's Funniest Home Videos-style show called Devries. In 2009 he guest starred in South Africa's longest running soap, Egoli.

In 2010 he appears as a guest artist in the Afrikaans improvisational TV-show Proesstraat and as judge on the popular Afrikaans reality show Supersterre alongside Shaleen-Surtie Richards and Theuns Jordaan.

He has appeared numerous times on Comedy Central Africa in the stand-up comedy show, Comedy Central Presents…Live at Parker’s, in 2013.[2] Several of his stand-up, one-man comedy shows have also been featured on the channel including "Mondig", "Broeders, Ancestors" and "Mondig deel 2".[3]

On 31 October 2013 during an exclusive interview with Herman Eloff on Channel24, Casper announced that he was going to retire from doing his one-man stand-up comedy shows, after his latest tour "Casper Goes Khaki" is over. "Now I can concentrate on my painting and I can do movies and TV shows. I’ve done the one man show thing for 27 years now and it’s time to stop now," Casper told Channel24 during the interview.[4]

Controversy

In 2004 a radical right-wing activism Afrikaner group called the Boeremag was on trial for terror attacks in South Africa. During the trial plans to blow up De Vries together with eight other individuals was revealed. The group is quoted for saying that the reason for this plan was because De Vries "was not on the right path".[5]

References

  1. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 3 September 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-04. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 3 September 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-04. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. ^ http://www.comedycentralafrica.com/news/casper-de-vries-hangs-up-mic/[permanent dead link‍]
  4. ^ http://www.channel24.co.za/Gossip/News/Casper-de-Vries-makes-unexpected-announcement-during-Channel24-interview-20131031
  5. ^ News24: Boeremag planned to blow up Parliament
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