Highly acclaimed, The Champion is an award-winning production that tells the story of a young man who grapples with the legacy of an absent father and a mother who is a grass widow. Much of the play centres on the conflicts and contradictions inherent in and the insights delivered about his mother's life choices.

Winner for Fleur du Cap Best Performance in a Revue, Cabaret or One-Person Show (2014)
Nominated for Fleur Du Cap Best Performance by a Lead Actor in a Player (2014)
Nominated for Fleur Du Cap Rosalie Van der Gucht Prize for New Directors (2014)
Nominated for Zabalaza Festival Best Script Award (2014)
Winner of the Zabalaza Festival Most Outstanding Performer (2014)
Winner of the Zabalaza Festival Best Production Award (2014)
Winner of the 2017 Fresh Fringe Writing Award (2017)

Media & Reviews

"The Champion won the Zabalaza Festival best production award back in 2014, and justifiably so, the excellence of the script is its lack of easy answers or simple solutions."

Review of The Champion by Steve Kretzman

"In a society where violence is pervasive and concepts of masculinity are under scrutiny Champion explores the roots of both perpetrators and victims of violence in a riveting monologue that disrupts the traditional narrative."

Review of 'The Champion' by Tracey Saunders

"The Champion deserves high praise for a sensitive but unsentimental piece."

Review of 'The Champion' by Daphne Cooper

Audience Responses

The Champion is the kind of play that stays with you after you have left the theatre. The performance given by Khayalethu Anthony is amazing. His skills as an actor come through in this production. He is thoroughly convincing of the sadness and loneliness that often comes with the performance hyper masculinity. A sadness and loneliness that often turns violent. It is a play that forces you to engage with the difficult gender politics of this country. Gender relations in South Africa are complicated. They are complicated by race, class, and "traditional" believes and practices. The Champion is presented by the Makukhanye Art Room, a theatre in Khayelitsha, so this is a township story told by people who've seen it, and perhaps even lived it. This is important. Township stories are important. The telling of township stories is important. And of course, who tells township stories is important. While this show was good in the respects I have mentioned, I was left with some questions. While the voice and pain of the young man who grows up fatherless, and fails to meet the demands of masculinity as defined by the society he lives in, the voice of the woman (or women) was inaudible. I understood the troubles of the young man, I felt for him, I saw where he was coming from, but I was never given an opportunity to understand the woman (or women). Gender relations in South Africa are complicated, and the ommission of "the other" side in this story for me demonstrate that complexity, a complexity that I think the play was trying to show. For me, where the play seriously gets it right, it is at the end, when the lead charcter shouts that he is a product of his community, that the peopple around him created the violent monster he became. This moment speaks to the gender troubles in South African society, that we are all often complicit in the perpetuation of gender inquality and violence through silence, through looking the other way, through a "it's none-of-my-business" attitude, through an all around promotion of a culture of female "inferiority." While the play succeeds in centering the troubles of black masculinity, I fear that it does so at the expense of black femininity.

Oustanding performance. Should be prescrptive for all ..... insight into life of a young black man who could be a colleaugue, fellow student or the person you pass along the street ..... Congratulations. Thank you for bringing us this high calibre of theatre.

Superb again, & it was my second time!

This was an outstanding show and so appropriate for Cape Town - hopefully encouraging a mix of CT cultures to enjoy this really amazing slice of life in Kyalitscha!

Brilliant, well-staged, intimate, excellent story-telling, not too in your face that you cannot sit back and also objectively view the play and its message. Superb and highly recommended.

An excellent show. I've seen the show before at the Baxter and the Shacktheater in Khayelitsha. The venue at Alexander Bar made the show more intense and intimate. The acting is absolutely brilliant and Khayalethu excels in slipping into the different roles and keeping the audience captured. The play gives an insight into an all to common upbringing of children in South Africa and the frustration and insecurity that brews inside so many people, goes unattended and remains bottled up and festers into real rage and obsession. It is a crucial play that provides some answers to why our society is violent. I highly recommend this show! And the venue :) And the bar to sit and chill and have a drink to digest the show that was just seen!

The performance was outstanding and we would have wished for a larger audience. Perhaps there is room for more marketing. Allow me a comment on your website. The remarks on the dangers of coming in your car are less than useful. They may intimidate customers and put them off. We found a parking across the corner and had no problems whatsoever. Notwithstandig we were impressed by the most dramatic and subtil performance and saddened by the fact that these stories are happening every day in the townships.

Incredible

In a weird way this play has a connection with DIE REUK VAN APPELS: family horror and abuse observed from a child's POV. Powerful stuff well-written, acted and directed. Glad I saw it at last. (in haste)