Yesterday was almost ruined by a terrible reviewer. Ok it wasn’t because it’s impossible to ruin Fest, but it was negatively affected by a horrible, not-picky review of a Symphony Concert I loved. Even more annoying was the truly awful one-woman opera piece booked on the basis of his rave review. I like opera. In fact, I kind of love opera. This piece was everything that gives opera a bad name – boring storyline, translation that only adds to the audience’s misery and a performer trying so hard to be dramatic she ends up screeching and shrieking all over the place.

Luckily, the rest of the day was great. We started with an excellent lecture about South Africa’s forgotten centenary (2010) by one of my favourite history experts, Paul Maylam. He really is excellent and it was great to get a longer view of SA’s history than 16 years for a change.

Next up was one of the things I missed most in Korea: stand-up comedy. South African comedy is unique, mostly because few other countries are as, um, odd as ours. Siv Ngesi failed to disappoint with an hour of peculiarly South African funny. His show is called Dekaf and, he warns in Cue, may possibly offend people with a chip on their shoulder. Everyone else will find it funny.

The last show of the day was the ballet. I love professional ballet (yes, as well). This year was one of my favourites, Carmen. I’ve seen Cape Town City Ballet perform Carmen once before. This year was the same magic only more so. Beautiful music, stunning dancing, great set, costume and lighting design. One of the things that struck me this time was the balance – there seemed to be more male dancers. This may sound odd but I know CTBT has been working on developing male dancers and I wondered if it was finally paying off. Certainly, I remember this being a heavily female ballet with the occasional male character but last night was beautifully balanced, which had the wonderful effect of making it all more natural and improving the flow. I’m always sad that there is only one ballet at Fest but I’m glad this year’s was the flowing, moving, fast-paced Carmen.

High Diving: A particularly intense theatre piece that combines excellent acting and characterisation with music and shadow-puppetry to leave you breathless. I felt it was a little heavy on the silhouettes and music, especially in the first half, and way too many scene changes but overall an excellent piece and well worth seeing.

Symphony Concert: The older I get, the more I appreciate classical music. This symphony concert, to a sold-out house and conducted by the inimitable Richard Cock, was gorgeous. The orchestra was the Cape Philharmonic. They began with Reznicek’s Donna Dianna Overture, followed by Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, with it’s lovely conversation between piano and woodwind. And then the glorious New World symphony, performed by, among others, 18 violins. There are many people in the world who actively dislike classical music. I wonder why?

Friday’s plans include comedy, opera, a lecture and a ballet. should be another good day.