The taxi  journey was hair raising. At  5am it was  dark  and  we sped with unnecessary urgency  from Grahamstown to the airport in  Port Elizabeth. It  was one,  seat gripping forehead sweating,  hour  of hell. We , Gill Anna and I,  sat in stoney silence as the driver pursued the bumper of every  car in existence upon the motorway. 

We passed the sewage works before entering  Port Elizabeth and a  purile stench  filled the van. It was the smell of  fear and I cannot be sure that it really was the sewage works.  We looked at each other in embarrassment as we arrived at the airport.  Nobody said a word.

Two hours later and we arrived at Tambo international airport,  Johannesburg where I picked up the hire car.   “what’s the word – Johannesburg.” I sang  Gil Scott Heron’s
words  as we hurtled through towards the  city and to Soweto. We  arrived at the five star Hotel.   As we entered  the hotel  a delicate meticulously manicured woman sat
cross legged  in a chair daintily patting foundation  upon her pouting face. She
raised an eyebrow from her mirror.  I raised mine.

She is Lorna Maseko the first black ballet dancer of South Africa and now famed
Television presenter on  South Africa broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) “Soweto Live”.  But make no bones about it ballet dancers are strong strong stock, those  feet inside their  dainty shoes are gnarled and worried.   I change into something respectable hoping to God or anyone that the smell of the journey had passed.  

Dressed in Calvin Klein trousers Kurt Geiger shoes John Smedley T shirt and Cashmere Sweater  I sit. The sound man fits my mic. I note how good we both look but  how
important it is to dress for interview, to give the camera, the viewer,  respect. I am entering  people’s homes. It is the least to do.  However one dresses,  to think about it is to give respect to ones self and the person one is talking to.  Self respect is a close call to vanity.  When the latter hides the former then all is lost.  The camera soaks us  both in and we begin what becomes an electrified interview.   

My one person play Something Dark has truly found  home in South Africa.   I   travel to our  apartments  in Houghton Johannesburg. I am staying  two streets from where Nelson Mandela Lives and tomorrow I shall walk onto the stage of a place that has had more than its fair share of drama, the most famous in South Africa, established by Lithuanian Jewish immigrant Barney Simon in 1976,  one week before the Soweto uprising,  The market Theatre .