The Almost Perfect Podcast

In light of PJ Black retiring from professional wrestling, I figured I'd re-release the chat I had with South Africa's most successful wrestler (he pinned John Cena - twice) back in 2021.

PJ Black is a professional wrestler. He's wrestled in 65 countries over his storied career and it all began under his father's tutelage here in South Africa. PJ has held titles in countless wrestling promotions including the WWE as Justin Gabriel, but these days it seems like he's mostly just focused on having a good time both inside the ring and out. When he's not doing 450 Splashes off the top rope, he can be found jumping off of buildings and out of planes.

In this podcast, we get into the history of how PJ went from refereeing matches in South Africa to wrestling at Wrestlemania and beyond. PJ shares how a potentially career-ending injury lead him to meditation and the life-changing impact that it's has had on his life. It turns out that there are also meditative aspects of falling through the sky. We get into why PJ chose ROH over going back to the WWE. We discuss the creative aspects of wrestling and what it's like to always be performing on a razor's edge in front of a live audience. PJ shares how he came to join Lucha Underground and just how fun it was to team with Jack Evans. And we also chat about what it would mean for him to achieve his life-long dream of wrestling at The Tokyo Dome. Enjoy.

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Riaad Moosa is a qualified doctor who became one of South Africa’s best-known stand-ups, with a career that includes the Pure Monate Show and Late Night News with Loyiso Gola, the film Material, and a turn as Ahmed Kathrada in Long Walk to Freedom. He is also, by his own admission, a doctor in quotation marks these days, which hasn’t stopped him from diagnosing comedy itself.

In this episode, we get into whether laughter is a painkiller or something closer to healing, why “aha” and “haha” sound like opposites but might be related, and why there is still no unified theory of comedy. We talk about the trappings of fame, ego death on stage, and how he balances creating comedy for the audience vs for himself. Enjoy.

Keep up with Riaad on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/riaadmoosa/

Follow Bob: https://www.instagram.com/almostperfectbob/

Exclusive content: https://patreon.com/almostperfect

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Angel Campey is a Cape Town comedian, writer and radio presenter whose career started with a blog, a Twitter account and a plan to get into Cosmo. Fifteen years on, she has written for ZANews and Politically Aweh and presents the drive show on Smile 90.4FM. She still misses the Twitter that made all of it possible.

In this episode, we talk about comedy after Twitter: how algorithms give every audience a different set of references, why the universal joke is either impossible to find or too hack to use, and how the death of monoculture has forced comedy writing to evolve. Angel also explains how she changed her mother's mind on vaccines by curating her feed, and we compare notes on out-of-context clips and comment sections. Enjoy.

Keep up with Angel on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angelcampey/

Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/almostperfect

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Candace Fortune runs comedy shows most nights of the week in Cape Town. Under her Kaas Kween Comedy banner there are lineup shows across the city's cannabis venues, a support show at The Spot, headliners at Radisson Red, and an open mic she only started because new comics wouldn't stop asking. She carries the spotlight, the mic stand and the bag of cables to all of it herself, in Ubers.

In this episode we get into why comics playing a stoner room always think they're bombing, dealing with venue owners who think exposure is payment, and why it took seven years and a lot of people asking before she booked her own solo show. Enjoy.

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KG Mokgadi has been doing stand-up since 2010 and is one of the most respected comics working in South Africa. He's also the host of Politically Aweh, the independent political satire show that's been steadily growing into something significant.

In this episode we get into how KG writes, which is mostly in his head, and how a 30-second idea can become 15 minutes of material a year later. We talk about why arena shows are actually easier than club gigs, the corporate circuit and what it's like to die at one and then share the car ride home with the person who booked you, how his stint at Politically Aweh started during COVID and why final cut matters more than any TV deal, and we get into the fitness journey that started as something personal and somehow ended up inspiring strangers to start running. Enjoy.

Keep up with KG on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kgcomic/

Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/almostperfect

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Matt Kay is a Cape Town-based photographer who came up through photojournalism, spent formative years on a Texas ranch with a Pulitzer Prize winner he didn't know was a Pulitzer Prize winner, and has spent the better part of two decades thinking seriously about what photography is actually for.

In this episode, we get into why a photograph is never real, the collapse of photojournalism and how weddings filled the gap financially, why the boudoir work is less about taking saucy pictures and more about giving someone permission to be seen, and how the saturation of imagery has made it almost impossible for a single photograph to change anything anymore. We also get into snake catching clubs, growing up in the Midlands, and a yellow-billed kite named Napoleon. Enjoy.

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Conrad Koch is South Africa's most well-known ventriloquist, and his puppet Chester Missing is more famous than he is - a character who has interviewed presidents on television, and who has spent years at the centre of a genuinely complicated conversation about race, comedy, and who gets to say what.

In this episode, we talk about writing material that works in Gqeberha and Edinburgh, the implications of making Chester white and not brown, how millions of views on TikTok doesn't necessarily translate to a packed house, and why Conrad thinks the "I'm an artist, man" position in comedy is a lot easier when your country isn't the most unequal on earth. We also get into his new show Chester's Got Talent, the uncle joke that isn't quite working yet, and why he should stop replying to comments. Enjoy.

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/almostperfect

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Chuma Bentele is a Cape Town-based animator and comedian who is part of the Comics Choice Award-winning That's Not Funny team, and has worked on the Disney animated Afrofuturist anthology series, Kizazi Moto. With a love of the absurd, and a fearless approach to dissecting race dynamics in South Africa, Chuma has steadily built a name for himself as one of the most exciting new voices in South African comedy.

In this episode, we talk about how Chuma’s creative process flows between organising and performing stand-up gigs, animation, and writing, we dig into the nuances of the Cape Town comedy circuit, and why bombing on stage can sometimes be the best thing for your career. We also get into his experiences of living in Jeppe for 3 months, and the time he was mistaken for Tshepang Ramoba from Blk Jks in Stellenbosch. Enjoy.

Keep up with Chuma on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chumanotchuma/

Follow That's Not Funny: https://www.instagram.com/thatsnotfunnycpt/

Support the podcast on Patreon: patreon.com/almostperfect

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Sophie Joans is a theatre-maker, comedian, and the kind of performer who doesn’t just toe the line — she cartwheels over it. From playing the devil in a satirical German production where Elon Musk stands in for Faust, to getting her tits out for laughs at the Armchair, Sophie’s work blurs the boundaries between clowning, comedy, and full-blown chaos.

In this episode, we talk about Sophie’s recent international tour, creepy encounters in Germany, and why she believes live theatre will always be “AI-proof.” We also get into the origins of her production company Spark in the Dark, how it launched 14 shows at the National Arts Festival (7 of which won awards), and why building community beats chasing algorithms. Along the way, there are stories about Andrew Tate-inspired satire, nipple-related nicknames, and the ethics of turning exes into punchlines. Enjoy.

Keep up with Sophie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solo_joans/

Check out Spark in the Dark: https://www.instagram.com/sparkinthedarksa/

Support the podcast on Patreon: patreon.com/almostperfect

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.