‘Kaapse Stories from the Mother City’ is a unique Cape Town dinner show that gives visitors a convivial night out and a light-hearted, finger-dipping taste of the diverse people, culture, music and food of the Cape.
More than 70 000 guests have seen almost 900 performances of the show over the past three years at Richard’s Supper Stage and Bistro in Sea Point. It is the brainchild of entrepreneur, Roland Seidel, and South African theatre giant, Richard Loring, producer of the internationally acclaimed ‘African Footprint’, South Africa’s longest-running musical.
“Our mission is to give visitors a closer insight into Cape Town’s multicultural society and to pay tribute to the spirit and culture of its diverse people,” Seidel comments on the show, which last year won the Lilizela Tourism Award as the best ‘Roots and Culture Experience’ in the Western Cape.
He says patrons – 80% of whom are overseas tourists – leave impressed with the quality of the home-grown talent, all professional performers, including the award winning Basil Appollis, who wrote and directs the show.
Through humorous storytelling, the main character, Pa Joe Kleintjies, introduces visitors to his family, who used to live in District Six, and other colourful characters, including a Xhosa princess, an opera-singing security guard, an Afrikaans maître d’ and a homeless couple. South African favourites such as Miriam Makeba’s ‘Click’ song, ‘Waka Waka’ and ‘Shosholoza’ get tourists on their feet and swinging their hips in no time, with everyone dancing before the evening is done
The show is performed three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, increasing to five times a week or more in season. It starts at 19h30 and ends at 22h00. The venue accommodates up to 185 people. Programmes are translated into 11 languages to ensure that everyone understands what’s going on.
The rack rate of R435 includes the show, a welcome drink of sparkling wine and a four-course meal that showcases traditional Cape cuisine and the region’s fresh produce, including smoked snoek paté, samoosas, vegetable breyani, Cape Malay chicken and prawn curry, milk tart and koeksisters.
Seidel says the show is popular with tour groups and incentive groups.
Tour operators, travel agents and DMCs currently earn R50 commission per ticket. This will increase to R60 per ticket in 2016.
