Rome’s first rione (district) lies between the Colosseum, Roma Termini railway station and the Quirinal Palace, its cobbled streets folding through steep hillsides. Once known as Suburra — a rough, working-class district and birthplace of Julius Caesar — Monti has spent the past two decades evolving into one of the city’s most interesting neighbourhoods: a loose weave of artisan studios, indie boutiques, natural-wine bars, vintage stores, and tiny piazzas where students gather late into the night.

And despite its growing reputation as Rome’s coolest quarter, it still feels local.

That tension is exactly what makes Casa Monti such a gem.

Positioned on Via Panisperna — one of Monti’s most cinematic streets — the hotel feels like an extension of the neighbourhood itself. Outside, locals drift between aperitivo bars and tiny galleries; inside, the atmosphere shifts into a richly layered world of colour and pattern.

Designed by Laura Gonzalez, the interiors bypass the marble restraint often associated with Roman luxury hotels. Instead, Casa Monti embraces a kind of joyful maximalism: reds, yellows, corals, greens, striped textiles, fringed lampshades, mosaics and hand-crafted details are layered with cinematic confidence. Here, Greco-Roman-style friezes run across staircases, Pompeii-like motifs unfold beside lacquered wood, and scalloped arches, woven textures and rich patterns create intimately theatrical spaces.

At times, Casa Monti feels less like a hotel than a Roman apartment belonging to an impossibly stylish collector — someone with a weakness for aperitivos, craftsmanship and art. The palette itself is drawn from the city: sun-baked terracotta, faded peach, oxidised bronze, creamy travertine and saffron tones softened by Roman light. Even the sunflower-yellow Fiat 500 permanently parked outside the entrance feels like part of the playful design language.

No two rooms are quite alike. The suites are filled with bespoke furniture, artisanal objects, and references to Rome’s artistic history: handmade lino prints reinterpret ancient mosaics, collages echo the garden frescoes of the Villa of Livia and deep bathtubs open onto terraces overlooking Monti’s rooftops and domes.

The spaces are richly layered, with softness everywhere: gathered fabrics, striped seating, warm lighting and ivy-covered courtyards.

That same atmosphere spills over into the restaurant and bars. Downstairs, the restaurant spreads across a leafy courtyard, an intimate dining room, and a terrace set with woven rattan chairs and mustard-striped banquettes gathered around a sculptural fireplace by Giuseppe Ducrot.

The menu is Roman and unfussy — generous bowls of cacio e pepe, fried artichokes, seafood crudo and seasonal dishes. And are something of a ritual in themselves: maritozzi thick with cream, strong espresso, fruit and pecorino served beneath striped parasols.

Then there is the rooftop.

By late afternoon, the rooftop bar begins to fill with the kind of crowd Monti now attracts: stylish 20-somethings, artists, editors, couples lingering over spritzes, and impossibly elegant Romans who appear to know everyone.

There is also a small, atmospheric spa developed in partnership with Susanne Kaufmann. While it is stocked with Swiss and Austrian skincare, it feels less like a clinical wellness space and more like a hidden private retreat.

All of this makes Casa Monti seem like a small cultural salon embedded within the neighbourhood. Its latest collaboration may best capture that mood.

Some of its suites are not simply booked — they are temporarily inhabited. The concept sounds simple: take a hotel suite and allow an artist to completely reimagine it. The hotel’s current resident is Michael McGregor, who has transformed Suite 203, overlooking Via Panisperna, into an immersive, liveable artwork until 15 October.

Large hand-painted panels subtly reshape the perception of the living space, while sofas, curtains and pouffes are wrapped in McGregor’s distinctive motifs. Even the backgammon set designed by the artist becomes part of the experience.

Born in 1983 and based in Los Angeles after years spent moving between Mexico City, Paris, London, Greece and Italy, McGregor has developed a painterly language that transforms ordinary objects and fleeting observations into dreamlike compositions suspended between memory and imagination.

At Casa Monti, that visual language expands into architecture itself.

“Casa Monti offers a rare opportunity to work beyond the walls of galleries and studios,” says McGregor. “My aim is to craft moments of discovery through small gestures, playful details and subtle interventions that spark curiosity and invite personal engagement.”

That philosophy seems entirely aligned with both the hotel and Monti itself.

casamontiroma.com

From the July issue of Wanted, 2026.

Stern’s market has only gained momentum in recent years: hot on the heels of a solo exhibition of her work at the German Expressionist Bruecke Museum in Berlin in 2025, in October of that year, her 1946 portrait Malay (Black Headdress) sold for R21.7m at Strauss & Co; the second-highest price ever achieved for her work at auction, and a record for any Stern portrait of a female sitter sold in Africa.

Children Reading the Koran achieved R22.3m in 2023, and her work also featured in the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024. Topping even these eye-watering numbers is the single most valuable painting in South African art history — Stern’s Arab Priest, painted on a trip to Zanzibar in 1945, sold for the then-equivalent of R34m in London in 2011.

The painting is owned by the Qatar Museums Authority and is currently on show at the Iziko National Gallery in Cape Town under a heritage agreement whereby it returns for exhibition to South Africa every five years.

Stern’s continuing presence offers an opportunity to more closely understand an artist whose critical reputation is still actively being written.

In 2025, the Irma Stern Trust, which owns and manages Stern’s extensive collection and is in turn owned by Nedbank, announced a programme of exhibitions and events to showcase her work after her house museum at The Firs in Rosebank, Cape Town, was closed for renovation. Central to this programme is a series of focused exhibitions drawn from the collection and tracing her artistic development at different stages of her life.

In terms of an exhibition agreement concluded with Cape Town’s prestigious Norval Foundation, this series of four exhibitions will be shown through to the end of 2027. The second of these four exhibitions has just opened at the Norval Foundation, all curated by senior curator at Norval, Karel Nel.

The exhibition is titled Looking Closer to Home and brings together a body of work that has never been shown as a coherent exhibition before. For the first time, paintings Stern made in KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and Eswatini are presented alongside related charcoal drawings and sculptures drawn directly from her archive. These are works that reveal the depth of her engagement with the South African landscape and its people at a formative moment in her career.

Caroline Greyling, museum director at Norval, says, “Through this partnership with the Norval Foundation, the Irma Stern Trust, and Nedbank, we are able to ensure that Stern’s legacy is not only preserved but actively shared with new audiences, which is exactly what she would have wanted.”

‘We’re very excited to bring these works to an audience outside the walls of the Irma Stern Museum, in partnership with the Norval Foundation,” notes Kathy Wheeler, curator of the Irma Stern Trust Collection. “Many of them have never been exhibited before and offer a unique insight into a quite neglected but very important part of her history and development as a significant modernist artist.”

Stern’s travels, beginning with trips between South Africa, where she was born in 1894, and Germany, her ancestral homeland, played a huge role in defining her identity and her work. Her friendship with Max Pechstein and membership of the then avant-garde Expressionist Group in Germany was formative, but when the rise of anti-Semitism made it difficult for Stern to return to Germany in the 1930s, her focus shifted to travelling and painting in rural South Africa; work that would go on to define her reputation, despite a cool critical reception when it was first shown in Cape Town.

Many of the works on the exhibition reflect the artist’s ability to look differently at her subjects, often local black inhabitants of the regions she travelled in, including the young ‘Swazi Sisters’ or the married ‘Fingo Woman’, in two fascinating and important works that are central to this important exhibition.

Contrary to the contemporary contention that this was exoticisation of her black subjects on Stern’s part, Nel points to the fact that no other South African white artist at the time was interested in this subject matter, in turning the lives of these already repressed peoples into the core of her practice.

“Irma’s travels were central to her method and experience as an artist,” he says.

“And her bravery and independence in undertaking these trips, in what were the inhospitable conditions, is why the title of the whole series of exhibitions is titled ‘A Life of Displacement’.

“We follow up the current show with a programme focused on her travels starting at the outbreak of World War 2. Then, she travelled even further afield in Africa to paint in the Congo and later Zanzibar — the subjects of the two exhibitions to follow in 2027.”

• Looking Closer to Home will run at Norval Foundation until January 2027.

norvalfoundation.org

Wanted

They might linger on the poolside loungers or the bar where umbrella-topped cocktails are on tap, but it’s the sea that first grabs your attention on Ile Maurice.

Unless you’re arriving at the gates of Paradis Beachcomber Golf Resort and Spa. Here, where the road along the south coast runs out of room heading west and bends north, it’s Le Morne that grabs your attention.

Whether you’re out on the water or wandering the fairways (more on those shortly), it’s the rocky massif of Le Morne Brabant — one of two World Heritage sites on the island, alongside Aapravasi Ghat in Port Louis — that frames the view.

Paradis makes the most of that setting, pairing Le Morne’s drama with the easy-going pleasures Mauritius does so well.

“West is best” goes the old island cliché — shorthand for powdery beaches and sunset views — and Paradis doesn’t disappoint on either front.

Part of the Beachcomber group and long a favourite among South African travellers, Paradis excels at serving up the combo of sun, sea and sand that Mauritian holidays are made of. Book the generous all-inclusive package and it’s easy to see why the brand has been a local favourite for decades.

South Africans certainly can’t seem to get enough of the island. In 2025 more than 11,000 of us hopped over to Ile Maurice, making Saffas the island’s fifth-largest market. In an age of multi-generational travel, resorts like Paradis tick all the right boxes.

Bungalows were first built here in the 1960s, catering for travellers arriving to enjoy the wide lagoon to the north, sandy beaches facing the sunset and Le Morne rising behind.

Bungalows grew into a resort — then two, with the addition of the neighbouring Dinarobin — with the most recent renovation in 2023 giving Paradis a R220m refresh. And it shows, with a fresh, contemporary character across the property.

That’s evident in the refurbished rooms, remodelled in a breezy island style of pale timbers, natural textures, muted colours and an easy indoor-outdoor feel that makes the most of the seaside setting.

Rooms open towards gardens or the sea — and though nearly 300 rooms and suites are on offer, the low-rise buildings are scattered among palms and sprawling lawns, so it rarely feels busy. It also means you can choose a setting that suits you: near the pool if you have kids, further down the beach if you don’t.

Our room was close to the 18^th hole of the Paradis golf course — ideal for anyone planning to spend time on the fairways. Mauritius has long been all about the beach, but it’s fast growing a reputation as a global golf destination. New courses have opened in the north (Mont Choisy) and the south (La Reserve) of the island, and in 2024 the International Association of Golf Tour Operators named Mauritius the Tropical Island Golf Destination of the Year.

Before them all, there was Paradis Golf Club. It’s one of the oldest courses on the island, and while it might not have the championship credentials of newer rivals, it’s an ideal resort course. At 5,924m, it’s one of the shortest on the island, but length is hardly the point. The appeal lies in the setting, with fairways squeezed between Le Morne, the Black River lagoon and the Indian Ocean, and with tidal channels and water carries adding just enough risk and reward to ensure a challenging round.

This is perfect holiday golf, with no punishing forced carries or lightning-fast greens. Just enough strategy to make you think and fairways forgiving enough to cut you a break — all except the signature 16^th, a par-five that curls around the lagoon, where you’ll be tempted to cut the corner in search of the green. Or you can, like me, come back to search for your ball at low tide.

While I was on the golf course, the rest of my family found their own entertainment. To start, the lagoon is one enormous playground. Sailing, water-skiing, kayaking, stand-up paddling and snorkelling are all on offer — for free — and the sheltered waters and abundant lifeguards make it easy for children to spend long days in the sea. There is also a dedicated kids’ club buzzing with activity day and night.

That’s good news for parents looking to enjoy a quiet dinner for a change, and Paradis offers plenty of culinary distractions.

Zest became our go-to table for most of our stay, with a breezy, sea-facing design, excellent service and a Mediterranean slant to the menu. Pizza for the teen. Pickled octopus for me. Everyone was happy.

Next door, Blue Marlin elevates the service and cuisine into the realm of fine dining, making it the kind of place to dress up a little. For the rest of the time, island chic was the dress code of the day.

Staying longer and needing more choice? Guests at Paradis also have full use of the restaurants at the neighbouring Beachcomber resort, Dinarobin.

But if there is one restaurant not to miss, it’s La Ravanne. Set apart from the main resort, with tables beneath thatched pergolas on the sand, La Ravanne — the traditional drum central to the Mauritian sega dance — puts Creole cuisine front and centre. Here the menu leans into island flavours, with curries, local seafood and generous family-style dishes.

Wild boar salami with cinnamon and cloves was a wild departure from seafood plates ranging from octopus to line fish. Can’t decide? The platter of seven local curries lets you taste your way around the island.

That mix of international appeal and local influence is perhaps what you’ll remember most about Paradis. This isn’t the fanciest resort on the island, nor the newest, but in its blend of authentic hospitality and local culture, together with location, family appeal and one of the island’s most enjoyable golf courses, it’s a place where holidays feel truly effortless. And it’s all set beneath one of the most beautiful mountains in the Indian Ocean.

beachcomber.co.za

Wanted

Story audio is generated using AI

It wasn’t dancing that first captured the heart of the, frankly fabulous Johannes Radebe, best known for his mesmerising moves on BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing competition (this year, his role in the show changed to co-presenter). “It was the sparkles that got me,” he tells me, referencing the sparkly waistcoat he fell in love with that was worn by a ballroom dancer in the community centre near his home.

Unlike other dancing genesis stories I’ve come across, his wasn’t a childhood epiphany involving Fred Astaire, nor a pushy mother who spotted prodigious talent in her toddler. No, Radebe was just a boy from Zamdela, a township outside Sasolburg in the Free State, who was looking for his friends when he wandered into the local recreation hall and found a couple demonstrating ballroom and Latin dancing.

“I went up to the man wearing a silver waistcoat and tail jacket and said, ‘What do I need to do to wear that?’,” Radebe says, laughing. The answer that came back was simple: stick around and learn to dance. So he did.

In hindsight, it’s tempting to turn successful lives into neat narratives of destiny. Radebe’s story is different. “It was a complete fluke,” he insists. But he’s taken that fluke and run, or rather, danced with it. There were years of training, competitions his family could barely afford, jobs washing cars and dancing in shopping malls, cruise ships, South African dance championships and two seasons on our own Strictly Come Dancing. He joined the British show in 2018 and steadily transformed himself from a professional dancer into one of its most recognisable personalities.

At 39, the boy who wanted the sparkly waistcoat has effectively been handed the keys to the sequin cupboard. Radebe, as co-host of the show alongside Emma Willis and comedian Josh Widdicombe, cements his place in British hearts as the BBC’s juggernaut enters its 24th season. It’s the first three-person presenting team in the programme’s history, and for South African viewers there’s a pleasing amount of local talent involved: Motsi Mabuse remains on the judging panel while South African Latin champion Lethabo Monametsi joins the professional dancers.

Anyone that looks like me and can relate to my story will realise that it’s also possible for them.

The promotion has flummoxed Radebe. “I couldn’t have written the story for myself,” he says. “From a boy in Zamdela, dreaming but thinking that a world stage was out of reach … I’m just very proud. I’m pinching myself.”

Of course, dance wasn’t simply an extracurricular activity for Radebe. It became, he says, his “refuge”. He’s spoken about being bullied as a boy for being effeminate and about the economic obstacles facing a talented black ballroom dancer whose family didn’t have the money to send him gallivanting around the country to competitions.

But he persisted, eventually becoming a multiple South African Latin champion, dancing professionally overseas and finding his way onto Strictly and notable acclaim. One standout moment was in 2021 when he was partnered with The Great British Bake Off winner John Whaite. They became Strictly’s first all-male competitive pairing and reached the final. There was predictable muttering but soon that was overwhelmed by their chemistry and skill as they rapidly became seen as simply two men dancing exceptionally well.

Radebe doesn’t claim too much credit for the normalisation of the same-sex pair. “I’m happy to be a small part of making viewers more tolerant,” he says. “John and I understood that we’d play that little part, but I realised the impact of it after we did it.” There were doubts about how audiences would respond. Instead, “we’ve opened up conversations in homes about what’s possible in this world” — with a Viennese waltz and a good amount of Swarovski glitz.

Radebe says he never set out to be a role model. Now he accepts that visibility comes with obligations. “Anyone that looks like me and can relate to my story will realise that it’s also possible for them. Nothing’s out of reach.”

His question now is: “What can I do for others that are coming behind me?” That person is Monametsi. “We love her,” he says. “She’s the personification of joy.” More importantly, he says, she’s brought something recognisably South African into the UK Strictly family: “She’s demonstrated Ubuntu.”

His advice to her is refreshingly free of show-business guff about believing in yourself and reaching for the stars. “Darling, enjoy this ride. It’s not afforded to many people … It can absolutely change your life for the better.”

Radebe has been doing a lot of changing lately. He made his West End debut as Lola in Kinky Boots, a role he’d wanted for years, winning praise for a performance requiring him not merely to dance but act and sing in towering heels. His memoir, Jojo: Finally Home, was published in 2023, and he’s built a successful solo stage career. Earlier this year, asked to name his greatest achievement, he didn’t choose Strictly, the West End or any trophy. He chose building his mother her dream home.

Now presenting has replaced dancing on Strictly. Instead of communicating with his body — one raised eyebrow now contains his emotional range, and the autocue presents a different challenge.

He admits he’s not naturally a broadcaster. The producers knew that too. When he was first approached, he was told: “We wouldn’t give you this job if we don’t think you could do it. We want to afford you an opportunity to walk into the room and give it a go.” He did, and he immediately got the job.

Subsequently, he took classes and was trained by the BBC. “They know how to make great telly,” he says. “I was in good hands.”

There’s one obvious big perk to changing sides. After years of smiling bravely while judges dissected his choreography, Radebe will now have a microphone. “We’ve changed roles, Andrea,” he says with relish. “I cannot wait to hold them accountable.”

Infamous Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood should consider himself warned. Then again, Radebe concedes, “Craig is brutal, but he’s right most of the time.”

Lastly, I ask Radebe who he thinks about when he walks onto that floor, no longer standing behind a celebrity partner but at the front of the whole enormous glittering enterprise. Suddenly he’s emotional. “My mother. My family,” he says. “I’ve dedicated my life to them ... and everyone back home, because I didn’t think this life was possible.”

He returns to the little boy in Zamdela who thought “there must be more to life than these streets”, and then wandered into a recreation hall and saw a man dressed in sparkles. “I want to honour that child,” Radebe says.

There will be consolation in giving up the weekly competitive dancing. “My bunions will be resting, definitely,” he says with a smile. The feet are getting a break, but Radebe, I suspect, is only getting started.

Sunday Times Lifestyle

Story audio is generated using AI

Prof Mcebisi Ndletyana’s grandmother never spoke politics. Instead, she raised his consciousness through her prayers.

Growing up in Gqeberha, he listened as she prayed for the men imprisoned on Robben Island, quietly planting the seeds that would eventually become his life’s work.

“That is why I’ve always thought that priests were the true revolutionaries. I mean, the nationalist movement, the ANC movement, was started by priests.”

His grandmother, who had escaped an arranged marriage and made her own life in Port Elizabeth, was equally concerned with education, cooking and sartorial correctness.

“You can’t wear a checkered shirt and checkered pants. You have to mix the colours,” he recalls, laughing. “She was always telling you about people who matter and the purpose of life.”

We are at the Wine and Executive Club dinner at Fairlawns — the election edition — accompanied by one of the exceedingly charming, high-performing young winemakers of Babylonstoren, Danielle Marais, and Ndletyana, professor of politics at the University of Johannesburg, is proving an entertaining guide to the peculiarities of political power.

When you write, you must put your personality into it. You must express yourself. You must own the text

Prof Mcebisi Ndletyana

His childhood city, he explains, was a hotbed of resistance. “You couldn’t avoid being conscientised.” Neighbours had served time on Robben Island; school introduced him to radical literature. He joined the Communist Party, attracted by its intellectual tradition, although his political imagination was shaped first by African nationalism.

“If you couldn’t quote Marx, then you were lightweight,” he says. For him Walter Rodney mattered profoundly, as did a university mentor who insisted that research and writing required intellectual honesty.

“When you write, you must put your personality into it. You must express yourself. You must own the text.”

That commitment eventually demanded an uncomfortable reckoning with the ANC.

“I’ve been both part of the ANC and a critic of the ANC,” he explains. “These are leaders I’d grown up knowing. We used to sing songs about them, heroic songs, used to dance. And so the fact that they are quite different from how we had imagined them, from how we had eulogised them — there’s a sense of disappointment.”

Zuma is a friendly person, can pretend to be friendly, and very affirming, and has a self-deprecating humour. He can make fun of himself

His new book, The Zuma Effect, written with Mashupye Maserumule, examines how Jacob Zuma’s presidency became possible. Ndletyana refuses the comforting explanation of one uniquely slippery politician.

“Anomalous as it was, nonetheless it is understandable. It’s a creation of the ANC. And what became of the JZ presidency, the wanton looting of state resources, was actually a collective project.”

Over a glass of Babylonstoren’s Nebukadnesar, I ask whether Zuma resembles Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin. Ndletyana considers the question with relish.

“Perhaps more Trump than Putin,” he decides, although he sees elements of both. “With Trump, of course, these are egocentric people. They can’t tell the difference between the public person and the private person. It’s all the same to them.”

Zuma’s secret, he suggests, was his ability to make ordinary people feel seen.

“Zuma is a friendly person, can pretend to be friendly, and very affirming, and has a self-deprecating humour. He can make fun of himself.”

Charisma, he argues, becomes particularly potent among people whose everyday experience is one of being ignored or disrespected.

They’ve worked together now. There’s chemistry. They’ve had to rely on each other. They’ve realised that the other guy doesn’t have horns

Yet he is cautiously optimistic about the government of national unity, particularly the relationship between the ANC and DA.

“Both parties represent very powerful interests in the republic, middle class, upper income and business people, and these are people who have a stake in the stability of the republic.”

The parties have also discovered the human advantages of working together.

“They’ve worked together now. There’s chemistry. They’ve had to rely on each other. They’ve realised that the other guy doesn’t have horns.”

But agreement over economic stability cannot erase South Africa’s historical wounds.

“There’s a controversy around land. What to do with land? What to do with racial redress? What should we do with history? Does race matter or not?”

He believes political leadership must acknowledge that memory remains central to trust, especially among black voters.

We tend to think that there are intrinsic, natural identities that should stand, and yet identity is a product of societal environment

A guest asks what sort of country her 12-year-old son will inherit, and suddenly our conversation finds its most hopeful note. Ndletyana describes a generation comfortable inhabiting identities their parents had to struggle to reconcile.

“My kids, all of them are middle-class kids, St Davids and St Marys and all that stuff. And they are the harbingers of the future,” he says. “We tend to think that there are intrinsic, natural identities that should stand, and yet identity is a product of societal environment.”

The task, he believes, is to give that generation room to create something new. His generation, he admits, carries the bruises of township life and apartheid, and white people are quick to dismiss the past. But his children inhabit a different social world. That difference may be the most important political development of all, if leaders permit it.

“We have created a hybrid society between white folks and black folks, and that’s where the convergence of identities and views about South Africa and the networking and the ease of relationships exist. We have to allow that space to expand. And accept it. But we need honest leadership.”

Sunday Times Lifestyle

Come October, it’s time for Woordfees. All eyes turn (either with anticipation and delight or fear and loathing) to Stellenbosch.

Woordfees has been in constant evolution for almost three decades. Each iteration brings new ideas — such as The Perfect Pitch, a platform introduced this year giving theatre makers the opportunity to sell a proposed production to a panel of investors comprising Woordfees director Saartjie Botha, National Afrikaans Theatre Initiative CEO Cornelia Faasen, Carel Nolte of festival sponsor EasyEquities and theatre impresario Pieter Toerien.

Billed as a Dragons’ Den for the performing arts, the event spurred much discussion among those in attendance as to which of the eight pitches was most convincing. Few, I think, expected De Klerk Oelofse’s striptease presentation to win. But the actor secured R1m to develop and stage Sodom en Cremora, his envisaged “adult version of Peter and the Wolf”.

Having grown from a modest literary celebration to a major festival, Woordfees carries the responsibility of sustaining critical dialogue about Afrikaans identity. This means emphasising the cultural diversity that brown, white and black speakers of the language bring to such a gathering.

The first two shows I saw at Woordfees 2026 directly addressed the generative, occasionally humorous but often painful friction that emerges along these faultlines.

In I Lord Hamlet, directed by Jason Jacobs, Carlo Daniels reimagines Shakespeare’s tragic hero as a coloured man who has been institutionalised after a mental breakdown. This Hamlet is not only grieving a dead father but also navigating oppressive race and class dynamics.

His girlfriend Ophelia is a white woman whose father is crudely racist. His mother, Gertrude, has remarried out of economic necessity. His best friend Horatio is a fellow psychiatric inmate. This is not some distant Prince of Denmark, an indecisive and navel-gazing cliché. Instead, the protagonist’s anxiety and suffering are spurred by familiar circumstances.

In Ek is nie Danie, which returned to Woordfees in 2026 after an award-winning debut last year, the speaking voice is acutely aware of the limitations of its whiteness. That voice, on the one hand, belongs to poet Danie Marais; the words spoken are taken from a selection of poems written by Marais over the course of two decades.

They tell stories of love dissipating under the pressures of alienated life in a foreign country (Germany), the joy and distress felt by a father, and the disconnection of white South African writers from their black compatriots’ daily experience.

On the other hand, the voice we encounter belongs unmistakably to Albert Pretorius, whose performance conveys Marais’ words so vividly and idiosyncratically that the poetry takes on a new, embodied life. Some audience members who know and love the published poems might not enjoy them rendered in this form. There is no doubt, however, that Pretorius captures the alternating melancholy, mania and gentle self-mockery in Marais’ work. No-one who hears the desperate, angry howl of Ek en jy bestaan nie (You and I do not exist) will forget it.

I Lord Hamlet and Ek is nie Danie are structurally and stylistically similar in that both take advantage of the subtle interplay between a primary performer and an accompanying musician (Jannous Aukema and Schalk Joubert, respectively), in which the “accompanist” becomes part of the action. Song and innovative instrumentation are integral to both works.

The mutual understanding of a collaborating duo was on display in two other musical highlights at Woordfees. The inimitable Elzabé Zietsman donned pyjamas and a pair of wings for a revue with a twist in Wat om te Doen as die Wêreld Brand, portraying an extremely tired agony aunt to a conflict-ridden universe. Her voice soared, whispered and swelled again — but what is a cabaret songstress without her pianist? Here Jody Jason Petersen was the wind beneath Zietsman’s wings.

Another venerable but ageless musical star, Vusi Mahlasela, brought Woordfees to a close with an intimate concert at the Daisy Jones Bar. Mahlasela’s repertoire spans a period that is longer than Tsholofelo Papo, his quiet companion, has been alive. But the conversation between acoustic and electric guitar, between icon and protégé, felt like an inspiring passing of the torch between generations.

Business Day

Art Cologne

Art Cologne, the world’s first contemporary art fair, holds its 59th edition this year, featuring 65 galleries from across the globe. Divided into four sections — Galleries, Neumarkt, Collaborations and Art + Object — it features everything from established artists to cutting-edge experiments.

Dates: November 5-8

Venue: Koelnmesse, Cologne

Tickets: From €34

artcologne.com

Don’t miss:

• Karel Nel’s “Translucent Worlds” exhibition at Everard Read Joburg until November 19
• Thirza Schaap’s “After The Tide” solo show at Berman Contemporary in Cape Town until November 28
• Caryn Scrimgeour’s “A Certain Slant of Light” and Emalie Bingham’s “Devotion Myths” solo exhibitions at Everard Read London from November 13 to December 12
• Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi’s “Figure, Ground”, Raúl Rueda’s “There’s A Door That I Have Closed Until The End Of The World” and Simon Gush’s “Nowhere Better Than This Place” solo shows at Stevenson, Cape Town, until November 28
• “Reverse Futures” at JCAF, Joburg (by appointment only), until December 5, featuring Etel Adnan, Cave_bureau, Kate Crawford, Vladan Joler, Paula Gaetano Adi, Kamil Adam Hassim, Traci Kwaai, Ernest Mancoba, Georgia Munnik and Yinka Shonibare
• Andrzej Urbanski’s “Shift — The Weight of Order” and Erin Chaplin’s “Behind the Curtain” solo shows at Everard Read Cape Town on November 5-28

Theatre

Letters From Tomorrow

As he waits to testify before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, former apartheid security branch officer Van Schroer quietly keeps notes while others confess the crimes of a nation. What begins as an account of the hearing slowly reveals itself to be a letter he has carried for years but never had the courage to finish. As buried truths emerge, so too does an unexpected act of grace and a chance at redemption.

Dates: November 13-15

Venue: Soweto Theatre

Tickets: R100-R150

webtickets.co.za

The Graduation of K-C

Written by Greg Homann and co-directed by Homann and Campbell Meas, The Graduation of K-C centres on a Xhosa father and Northern-Irish mother navigating identity and belonging as they prepare to celebrate their daughter’s graduation. Long-held assumptions are challenged in this witty, heartfelt exploration of love, politics and cultural inheritance.

Dates: November 5-29

Venue: The Market Theatre, Joburg

Tickets: R110-R220

webtickets.co.za

Music

Sibongile Khumalo Celebration

Music director Tshepo Mngoma, conductor Kutlwano Masote, a stellar cast of singers and the Chamber Orchestra of Johannesburg have woven together a set list that revisits the legendary Sibongile Khumalo’s forays into jazz, opera, art song and indigenous music.

Date: November 13

Venue: The Market Theatre, Joburg

Tickets: From R300

webtickets.co.za

A Grand Night for Singing | UJ Dean’s Concert

A Grand Night for Singing is the University of Johannesburg’s annual Dean’s Concert in support of the Dean’s Bursary Fund. Prof Federico Freschi returns to the stage alongside acclaimed pianist Christopher Duigan and soprano Angela Gilbert. The UJ choir, led by choirmaster Sizwe Mondlane, will add the power of its collective voice to this musical celebration.

Date: November 7

Venue: UJ Arts Centre, Joburg

Tickets: From R150

quicket.co.za

Legato Choral Festival

The Legato Choral Festival honours the rich tradition of choral music, featuring outstanding ensembles from across the greater Tshwane area and showcasing musical excellence and the power of community.

Dates: November 14&15

Venue: SA State Theatre, Pretoria

Tickets: R150-R180

webtickets.co.za

Earth, Wind & Fire | Recitals at Glenshiel

Recitals at Glenshiel is hosting a rarely heard instrumental combination of trumpet, violin and piano in Earth, Wind and Wire, featuring Dieter Hendricks (violin), Richard Kingon (trumpet) and Kerryn Wisniewski (piano). The programme consists of 5 Melodies, Op 35, by Sergei Prokofiev; 7 Popular Spanish Songs, by Manuel de Falla; Trio in E-flat for Trumpet, Violin and Piano, by Eric Ewazen; and Brave Wolfe, by Mark O’Connor.

Date: November 29

Venue: Glenshiel, Westcliff, Joburg

Tickets: R300

quicket.co.za

Opera

Roméo et Juliette

Cape Town Opera presents Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, the Shakespearean tragedy filled with forbidden romance and feuding families, with Kamal Khan returning to the Artscape stage.

Dates: November 18-29

Venue: Artscape Theatre Centre, Cape Town

Tickets: R180-R720

webtickets.co.za / artscape.co.za

Christmas fairs, markets and festivals

Skeppend Christmas Market

This annual market, held at the Simonsvlei Wine Estate in Paarl, features locally handmade, one-of-a-kind Christmas gifts.

Dates: November 27 to December 20

Venue: Simonsvlei Wine Estate, Paarl

skeppendsa.co.za

Glenshiel Christmas Fair

Held, as always, in the lovely Glenshiel gardens, this year’s fair features booths selling fashion, jewellery, home décor and beauty products, plus food vendors and plenty of bubbly. Ticket sales support the Order of St John’s community work.

Dates: Until November 1

Venue: Glenshiel Estate, Westcliff, Joburg

Tickets: From R150.

glenshiel.org.za/tickets/

The Linden Market Festive Edition

The Linden Market always promises lovely new finds. R70 entrance.

Dates: November 28&29

Venue: Joburg Botanical Gardens, Emmarentia

thelindenmarket.com

Parkview Christmas Market

Hosted by Nicarela Charity at George Hay Park, this community favourite features more than 80 stalls, a food market and kids’ zone. Think fashion, jewellery, homeware, children’s gifts and Christmas goodies.

Dates: November 20-22

Venue: George Hay Park, Parkview, Joburg

nicarela.org/christmasmarket

Joburg Zoo Festival of Lights

Take a tranquil walk among life-size illuminated animals and twinkling trees, away from the animals. Also, live entertainment, food and craft markets, and all-round good vibes.

Dates: November 26 to January 3

Venue: Joburg Zoo, Parkview

Tickets: From R75.

joburgtheatre.com / webtickets.co.za

Gift Fair at The Baxter

This lifestyle event offers inspirational ideas and products, promising a celebration of unique finds.

Dates: November 4-8

Venue: Baxter Theatre, Rondebosch

Tickets: R40 entry.

thegiftfair.co.za

Wanted