Laughter helps SA Aids fight

Evita Bezuidenhout is Uys' most popular character

One of South Africa's most famous comedians, Pieter Dirk Uys, has been touring the country's schools - on a mission to help pupils fight their fear of Aids with laughter.

South Africa has more people with Aids than any other country - one in ten of the population is carrying the virus, and 600 men, women and children die every day from the disease.

But Uys - an impressionist and satirist described as South Africa's number one comedy act - has children laughing throughout his show.

"The whole point about the fear in South Africa is the death - the shame, because it's involved with sex, because it's involved with morality," Uys told BBC World Service's Health Matters programme.

"The biggest problem is that we are not confronting it with conversation.

"My job is to let people talk - let them be offended, let the government be angry - they're talking, that's fine."

Performance

Uys, who became famous during the Apartheid era in South Africa for his satirical attacks on the country's government, admitted it took all his skills as a comic performer to get the attention of children.

But he insisted that the message of his act was so important it had to be heard - and it was ever more important because much of the information given to South African schoolchildren was confusing.

"Instinct leads me along - I cannot use blueprints, I've learnt this in my life," he said.

Uys often talks about South Africa's children in his adult acts

"I have to be so inventive that by the time I'm nearly finished they realise - 'look what's happened here, he's caught us, but we've actually listened'."

Uys stated that he felt it was essential he visited all types of school in the country.

"All those young people have got dreams, and they're all excited about their lives," he said.

"This is the generation beyond Apartheid - they don't know what Apartheid is.

"Can you believe the joy of talking to a young black child about Apartheid, and they say 'hey, what's that?'

"And you say, 'never mind, that struggle is over. Your struggle is starting, because the virus of Apartheid has been healed through democracy, but the virus of HIV has as yet got no cure'."

Fighting fear

Uys explained that he wanted children to find his shows amusing so that they would not be afraid of confronting Aids in the future - and taking the precautions to prevent it.

"More than anything I have to react. So I introduce myself, and I tell them about how I fought my fear with laughter," he told Health Matters.

"Actually it's about fear, it's not about Aids. We are terrified of a virus.

Let's not wait for 20 years and look back and realise that if we had spoken today we would have saved the lives of 20 million people' Pieter Dirk Uys

"But the more frightened we are, the more we look away. The more we look away, the bigger the virus becomes. It can actually control us because we are too scared to confront it.

"So I say confront your fear with laughter."

Key to Uys's show are his characters.

These include his impressions honed from his Apartheid act of the likes of PW Botha - "Apartheid is a pigment of the imagination" - and Nelson Mandela, in whose voice Uys tells the children to "put your love in a plastic bag."

"That is for the teachers, I must bring my teachers in as well," Uys said.

But the character that the children want to see is an updated version of his drag act Evita Bezuidenhout - the self-proclaimed "most famous white woman in South Africa" and formally the star of his anti-Apartheid shows.

"I give a few beats, and like Joan Collins, turn around, and that's it - they do somersaults with excitement," Uys said.

Uys has been attacked by Mbeki's government for his 'flippant' attitude

"And then we start with Evita's denial - because she doesn't know what it's all about."

Evita tells the children that they "shouldn't talk about sex, they must wait till they get married, they must abstain, they must be faithful."

Uys said the character worked both because she highlighted the ignorance amongst much of South African society about Aids, and because she was so colourful.

"Most schools have got people who teach the health aspect very dryly and very healthily, meaning diagrams, this and that - and the kids are bored to death and they go on to their cell phones," he stated.

"My point is I entertain them about our lives, around the importance of knowing about the health things."

'Tantamount to genocide'

Uys admitted that there were often schools he was asked not to perform at by parents who did not wish for their child to hear his message.

Uys has often provoked both amusement and outrage

He has also been accused by the South African government of "responding flippantly to serious issues".

However, Uys attacked the government's Aids strategy as being "Tantamount to genocide."

"To ignore [people] is to kill them," Uys said.

"People are so confused, and so stigmatised and so frightened, that people are dying of natural causes.

"My point is that I want to use that word today - genocide - I want to say, 'if I'm wrong, prove me wrong, but let's not wait for 20 years and look back and realise that if we had spoken today we would have saved the lives of 20 million people'."