It’s been nearly 27 years since Marc Lottering first picked up the standup mic to try what he thought would be a short-lived stint in the entertainment industry. Here are some of the lessons we can learn from the career of one of South Africa’s most loved comedians.
Find your thing
When Marc first tried comedy, he was working at an ad agency. While he found it thrilling and inspiring and it taught him a lot about creativity, he didn’t feel entirely fulfilled. “We try different things and we want it to be the thing, but it’s not yet the thing,” he muses. For Marc, the thing turned out to be comedy. “I think this was the destination,” he says. “I believe that this is what the creator has called me to do.”
Make a difference in people’s lives
“I’m here to push that button to get people to laugh like they did when they were in high school and they just laughed with two of their best friends until they cried with laughter,” says Marc. “The world has made it more and more difficult for us to get to that place. So, to just hear people screaming with laughter, it’s the best thing for me.”
Be yourself
It was while working at the ad agency that Marc learnt to embrace his heritage. “You grow up on the Cape Flats thinking, ‘why didn’t I grow up in New York?’ Because that’s all that we were watching on TV. You think that’s the world. Who wants to hear our stories? Who wants to speak like us? In that agency, that’s where I learnt that we have a voice. And working with directors like David Kramer, who was like, ‘speak with your own accent. Speak with your own voice. Tell your stories. Celebrate our characters.’”
You don’t have to read the comments
“I had to learn, you cannot go through the comment section if you post something because it will destroy you if you are sensitive,” says Marc, who describes himself as sensitive. “I leave it up to my husband, Anwar. Anwar’s strong that way. He’ll tell me who to block.”
Choose to focus on the positive
“South Africans are able to laugh through the harshest of circumstances,” says Marc. “I think it’s been our saving grace. When you go onto X [formerly Twitter], there’s the other option – when you cannot laugh, but find a reason to call everybody out on something and get really, really ugly. That’s one way to go, and a very easy way to go in South Africa because we have so many problems. The other way to go is to believe that there are still more good South Africans floating about than there are terrible ones. It’s the terrible people who get the space in the newspapers, who get the headlines. So, one gets that negative energy.
“But behind the scenes… I can tell you about all the charities and organisations I work with; about people who have decided that life is too short to wait on government because things need to get done. Children need to be fed or looked after. Soup kitchens are being set up, not waiting for handouts. People who are wealthy have gotten together and every year they are making sure that they’re giving out 20 bursaries to kids on the Cape Flats, who will not get to university if it’s up to their parents, but they should be there. That’s all behind the scenes. And those are the South Africans I choose to focus on. Otherwise you will just end up on X in a very, very dark space.”
IMAGE: Julia Janse van Vuuren