Outrageous, a no holds barred film about a gang of renegade stand-up comedians, will be released by UIP on 9 April 2010.

The film is hosted by John Vlismas and features Barry Hilton, Riaad Moosa, Loyiso Gola, Mark Banks, Joey Rasdien and Krijay Govender in a mockumentary-styled look at the madness that takes place before, during, and after a gig. 

Stand up Bevan Cullinan directs the film.  Bevan is a prolific performance and comedy director whose direction of the three DSTV ‘Guess Who’s Been Watching?’ commercials has been applauded worldwide.

The film is produced by Anant Singh and Helena Spring, and co-produced by John Vlismas.  John says Anant Singh phoned him a few years ago to say he wanted to make a movie which is ‘kind of inspired by The Kings of Comedy.’

John remembers how Anant ‘wanted to know if we could get started immediately.’ “Well it’s nine years later and I think our timing can’t be better.  I looked around for a director and I decided to work with Bevan who has a solid grounding as a stand-up comedian himself.”

Next, John and Bevan had to find the right comedians for the project, which proved challenging. “There are so many comedians who could’ve been in the movie,” recalls Bevan.

“We had to look at the comedians as characters. We did not want to just make an HBO special where you have an hour-and-a-half show with nine cameras running. There’s a lot more happening in this movie. "You get a glimpse of the madness and crazy banter that happens at the gigs.  We had to get comedians with a variety of styles and who would have the right chemistry when we threw them in a room together."

Bevan explains the importance of demographics. “Take Loyiso Gola, a black man in his 20s, and put him right up against Barry Hilton, a white dude in his 50s, and you get comic moments that evolve naturally. That’s what we were looking for. Throw in someone like Joey Rasdien and the laughter just flows.”

Bevan explains that the script was written in the edit.  “The script started out as a nine page document that John and I wrote. We set up a kind of a construct of how we visualised the film and how we were going to get the material out of the comedians.  The film started to tell its own story. We did not want to do a remake of Kings of Comedy.  What sets Outrageous apart is that we deliberately sought out universal links between the various comedians’ work and then we started threading these similar ideas together, which became a narrative. What you see of the comedians are the highlights of all their sets over the month or so.”

The movie is also largely about taking the comedian out of a small, intimate venue and moving him on to a massive stage such as the Big Top at Sun International’s Carnival City. “There is a huge difference between a big and a small venue. People not only get to see the funny stuff but they can also see how the style changes between the venues.” Watch the Outrageous trailer.
Astrid Stark