CHRIS THURMAN: The Chris van Wyk effect and the day I met my arts writer’s Waterloo

When you work as an arts writer, you start to take certain things for granted. Not for you, planning ahead or waiting in lines or buying tickets when going to the theatre; you swan in, pick up your comps and breeze past the hoi polloi, ready to start mentally penning your review. In my case, this presumptuousness is aggravated by a bad habit of arriving just in time for curtain-up. So perhaps it was inevitable that, sooner or later, I would meet my own personal Waterloo: the inaccessible, overbooked, fuller-than-full house. I was due to see Van Wyk — The Storyteller of Riverlea at the Market Theatre. By all accounts, however, the theatre has been besieged by enthusiastic audiences jamming in to see the show since the first preview last week. The official opening night was no different. No seat could be begged for love or money, even if you were “on the list”. Is this a good omen for the Johannesburg theatre scene in 2019, a sign that Joburgers will turn up in droves to support new p...