PETA STEWART
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it Superman? Well yes and no. It’s actually Rob van Vuuren, and he will be a bird, a duck, a car, hunters, a wolf, Peter of the Peter and the Wolf, then any number of characters from Star Wars and Indiana Jones to ET.
The busy comedian and actor is going to be the narrator at the next concert at Kirstenbosch Gardens, in which the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra will perform a concert geared towards children. It’s on 29 March 2026 at 17:30, and Rob is just the man to do it because he plans to involve children on the lawns – so get there early!
The PE/ Gqeberha-born Rob who studied at Rhodes University is truly funny, not only because of what he says and how he says it, it’s because of the faces he pulls. He won the Comics Choice Awards 2025 and several Fleur du Cap nominations and awards, an SA Comedy Award nomination, and a Nando’s Breakthrough Act Award and many Standard Bank Ovation Awards at the National Arts Festival. And yes, he’s a serious actor too – he also won a Fleur du Cap for his role in Ibsen’s The Doll House, and several more nominations for other serious roles.
He’s been a household name for years
“I am truly blessed to have had the most incredible career, “ he says. “It’s such a cliché but I really am living my dream. Over the past 30 years I’ve written a bunch of awesome plays, directed a bunch more, performed all over the world, made a bunch of tv shows and movies, created iconic characters like Twakkie and Namaste Bae, got to work with so many of my heroes and made lifelong friends along the way.”
“Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight directed by Embeth Davidtz was certainly a highlight of my film career. It’s an extraordinary film and you haven’t seen it please watch it on Netflix now. I’m also in a very cool film called The Trek doing very well at festivals around the world at the moment. My ongoing collaboration with Louw Venter is certainly a highlight. We’ve done so much together and we keep going! We’ve got a few film projects on the boil as well as his solo show Dead Dad, AND we’re even doing a Corne and Twakkie show on 2 and 3 of April at The Outlore in Cape Town. This performance with the Cape Town Philharmonic is definitely going to be a highlight. I absolutely love the CPO and Kirstenbosch has to be one of the most beautiful venues in the world and I love performing for kids. My first professional job as an actor was for a kids show ( I learnt so much very quickly) and I’ve even co-written two kids books (Florence and Watson) with Danielle Bischoff. So I’m very much looking forward to Peter and the Wolf.”
Rob says he has always wanted to be a performer and story teller.
“I remember vividly the first play I saw at the Guild Theatre in East London as a child. I was always writing poems and plays and performing for my family. Forcing them to watch my impersonation of Pieter Dirk Uys’ impersonation of PW Botha or lip-sync to Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing. The kids were forced to do nativity plays each year and I took full artistic license with them. When I watched The Goonies as a kid, my first thought was that I wanted to be one of those kids making that movie. As far as other career options were concerned, I remember taking an aptitude test as a kid a kid and it said that I would probably end up working in a library or video store. This was the 80s in rural Eastern Cape so it never really occurred to anyone that you could be the one making the movies.”
He was lucky in that he had very supportive parents.
“ Neither of them was in the arts, although my mom has always been very creative and a lover of the arts. She took me to my first National Arts Festival in Makhanda (then Grahamstown) and it changed my life forever. I felt like I had found my tribe. My love of film, especially comedy, comes from my dad. He would often bring (VHS) movies home after work. I loved listening to my dad howl with laughter at Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Michael Keaton and more. They sent me off to Rhodes University to study drama and they’ve been my biggest fans ever since.”
So where does he get his inspiration?
“It’s everywhere I think. The world and the human experience is too rich not to find inspiration somewhere. The trick is how to harness it into an idea and then painstakingly craft it into a real palpable thing. Inspiration is easy, the discipline to follow an idea into fruition is where the work lies.
“I’ve always been incredibly driven and focused on the next thing but I reached a turning point a few years back when I realized that I wasn’t quite appreciating what I had already done. It really was a ‘oh wait, I am actually already living my childhood dream’ kind of moment. It made me stop worrying so much about what I have to achieve next and rather enjoy the ride. The whole thing had been set in motion through decades of hard work and I could afford to be more present and stay focused on the job at hand. I still work super hard and I’m constantly making things but now I’m a little less hung up on how I think things are supposed to turn out, or which project is supposed to take off or which one I’m supposed to land. I’ve realized there is always something new and interesting on the horizon and rather than stress about it I’m excited to find out which one is next.”
Who: Rob van Vuuren with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra
Where: Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens
When: 29 March 2026 at 17:30
Book CPO concert tickets: Here
WS
