Venue
The Mandela |
Date
on April 11th 2010 |
Price
R186 |
PAUL ZERDIN - VENTRILOQUIST
PAUL ZERDIN DIRECT FROM THE ROYAL VARIETY PERFORMANCE 2009
Paul Zerdin, the man who has made ventriloquism cool, will be performing on the Mandela stage, at Joburg Theatre, for one night only on Sunday 11 April 2010 at 7:30pm.
Paul Zerdin triumphed at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival 09, achieving a sell out season and receiving 5 star reviews with his Sponge Fest Show. Paul also completed a sell out tour of India, where he played to packed houses in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Calcutta.
With a winning combination of charm, impeccable comic timing and continual audience interaction, Zerdin‘s Sponge Fest show sees Paul bring to life, three very different characters – the cheeky preadolescent Sam, belligerent OAP Albert and precocious infant Baby, before finishing up with a human puppet finale that is guaranteed not to leave a dry eye in the house!
Background:
That Paul Zerdin should make his career in show business is not entirely unexpected “my mother was a BBC Radio 2 presenter and my father worked for the BBC World Service, so my sister and I spent a lot of time in the studios”, he reveals.
When Paul was 10, a family friend made him a puppet theatre which he used to put on shows. As he is the first to admit, his hobby quickly grew into an obsession. “The real turning point was when I was given a book on ventriloquism by the legendary Ray Alan. By the time I hit my teens I was spending half an hour a day in front of the mirror practising talking without moving my lips.”
Having failed his GCSE’s in spectacular style, Zerdin got a job in a magic shop, developing his magic skills along the way. Simultaneously, he was also developing a sideline as a children’s entertainer. “Compared to my friends and their measly paper rounds, I was raking it in!” he laughs.
Zerdin made his TV debut as a magician on the BBC’s Tricky Business and shortly afterwards, at the age of just 20, landed a two year contract presenting the Disney produced kids’ programme Rise and Shine for GMTV.
In 1996, Paul was the first outright winner – by over 100,000 votes of LWT’s The Big Big Talent Show, hosted by Jonathan Ross. The experience not only raised his profile, but introduced him to Nigel Lythgoe, the man who would go on to create reality shows such as Popstars and American Idol.
Lythgoe took the 22 year old Paul under his wing, paving the way for appearances on scores of shows, Tonight at the London Palladium, and Generation Game among them. It was Nigel who gave Paul his first brush with Royalty when he secured him a spot on the Prince’s Trust Gala Show in 1997. “That was a totally surreal experience”, he laughs. “I was sharing a dressing room with Julian Clary, Alan Davies and Frank Bruno with The Spice Girls next door”.
By the late nineties it was obvious that traditional variety shows were losing their appeal and it was then that Zerdin decided to introduce stand-up into his routine, a decision that has paid off handsomely.
In 2008 Paul starred in his 14th panto alongside John Barrowman in the box office smash hit “Robin Hood” at the Birmingham Hippodrome
From Ray Alan through to Keith Harris, ventriloquists have been a staple of UK entertainment for years, but it has taken Paul Zerdin to bring his mix of stand-up and ventriloquism to the forefront of contemporary entertainment.
2010 is set to be a packed year with performances lined up in Rotterdam, Montreal and Ibiza.
For Further information please contact:
Robert Voice, rvoice@internationalartists.com ,
Or Becky Poole becky.poole@internationalartistes.com
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