Sizwe Sibiya
Comedians Celeste Ntuli and Thenjiwe have announced they are going to headline a stand-up comedy show in Dublin, Ireland at The Workmans Cellar.
Both born in KwaZulu-Natal and both unapologetically funny with a history of working as professionals in other, unrelated industries, the two comedians announced their show during a YouTube live stream on 3 June.
Thenjiwe is Thenjiwe Maphumulo-Moseley, from KwaMashu, Durban, a lawyer who practised in London before returning to Mzansi to pursue a career in comedy and filmmaking.
“I decided that comedy is not a joke. And I also saw that the people that you are dating are not making you laugh. So I saw it fitting that I quit my job to make you laugh,” Thenjiwe said to Ukhozi FM back in 2018.
Celeste Ntuli has a history in stage lighting where she worked for a few years before doing stand-up professionally. Her career in comedy took off after she appeared in the So You Think You Funny comedians’ talent scouting show, which aired on SABC in 2009.
She studied Entertainment Technology at the Durban University of Technology, got knocked out at the finals on season two of the talent show, but still went on to produce the first one-woman-show DVD in the country, titled Strictly Celeste, which was recorded in 2017.
To add to the vast topics they will be talking about, the two comedians are both established actors, with Thenjiwe even being a producer of two DStv sitcoms – while Celeste has starred on the Isibaya telenovela and Lockdown, among others.
In recent years, the comedy industry has been opening up for South African comedians like Trevor Noah and Loyiso Gola, among others. But now it’s time for the women in the industry to take the same road travelled by their male colleagues.
