Benjamin Voss | |
|---|---|
 Ben Voss | |
| Born | 3 May 1973 |
| Citizenship | South African |
| Alma mater | University of Natal, South Africa |
| Known for | Beauty Ramapelepele |
| Website | benvoss |
Ben Voss (born 3 May 1973) is a South African comedian, actor and satirist. He has been a professional actor, playwright and producer since 1998. He has also starred in films alongside John Cleese and Troye Sivan and in the TV series Desert Rose on Mnet and Showmax. [1]
He was born in Rhodesia and educated in Natal, South Africa. He completed an honours degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Natal. He also has a post-graduate degree in Human Resources from the same institution. After a gap year in South East Asia he returned to Durban, South Africa to take up a post as an engineer in the paper industry. [1]
In 1998 he gave up engineering and turned to acting. He performed in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in 2001 and played the title role in Macbeth in 2002. He is a multiple Naledi Award and Fleur du Cap winner and nominee.
On stage Voss is primarily a satirist. Together with John van de Ruit (of Spud fame), [2] he produced and performed the comedy skit shows Green Mamba and Black Mamba. [3] Both won many of South Africa’s major comedy and theatre awards [4] and played in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland, Germany and the United Kingdom, with runs at the Wimbledon Theatre in London.
Voss uses comedy as commentary on life in post-apartheid South Africa. His shows, Beauty and the B.E.E. and Bend it like Beauty (commissioned by the Oval House Theatre in London) [5] played in South Africa and abroad. His run at the Oval House Theatre in London was featured on BBC world news and he was commissioned to perform at events for the South African Soccer World Cup. [6] Voss has also shared the stage with Pieter-Dirk Uys's "Evita" [7] on his DVD release of Elections and Erections. [8]
His one-man show Benny Bushwhacker [9] played throughout southern Africa. In 2018 he played the Evil Queen [10] in the pantomime stage show of Snow White, directed by Janice Honeyman, at the Joburg Theatre. In 2021 he was top billed, as one of the ugly sisters, alongside Desmond Dube in Janice Honeyman’s Cinderella . [11] In 2023 he played Captain Hook in the three-month season of Peter Pan. [12] In 2024 he was awarded a star on Joburg Theatre's walk of fame.
Voss’s film credits include the Spud series of movies where Voss plays Mr. Lily, Spud's art teacher and under-14D/E rugby coach, alongside Troye Sivan and John Cleese.
He played the lead in Robert Fraser’s Game and the supporting lead in Craig Friemond’s drama Beyond the River in 2017.
In 2022, Voss played a lead role in the MNET and Showmax production of Desert Rose which was released in 63 countries. In 2023 he appeared in the Emmy nominated Reyka -season 2.
Maxwell Caulfield is a British actor. He has appeared in Grease 2 (1982), Electric Dreams (1984), The Boys Next Door (1985), The Supernaturals (1986), Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1989), Waxwork 2 (1992), Gettysburg (1993), Empire Records (1995), The Real Blonde (1997), The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997), and in A Prince for Christmas (2015). In 2015, Caulfield toured Australia with his wife Juliet Mills and sister-in-law Hayley Mills in the comedy Legends! by Pulitzer Prize winner James Kirkwood. He voiced James Bond in the video game James Bond 007: Nightfire (2002). He most recently stars in the Netflix move The Merry Gentlemen (2024).
Pieter-Dirk Uys is a South African performer, author, satirist, and social activist. One of his best known roles is as Evita Bezuidenhout, an Afrikaner socialite.
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Ian Fraser is a South African playwright, writer, comedian, anti-Apartheid activist, artist, anarchist, and social agitator, now living in the USA. He began as South Africa's first street-level comedian, "ranting-verse" poet, and acerbic anti-government satirist. He has consistently been a pro-democracy, anti-establishment voice, both under Apartheid and under the new dispensation in South Africa.
John Howard van de Ruit is a South African novelist, actor, playwright and producer. He has been a professional actor, playwright and producer since 1998. He was born in Durban and educated at Michaelhouse, where he stayed in Founders House and from where he matriculated in 1993. He then went on to complete a master's degree in Drama and Performance at the then University of Natal.
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Yaël Farber is a South African director and playwright.
Spud 3: Learning to Fly is a 2014 South African comedy film written by John van de Ruit, directed by John Barker and starring Troye Sivan, John Cleese and Caspar Lee. It is the second sequel to the 2010 film Spud following Spud 2: The Madness Continues (2013). It is based on van de Ruit's novel Spud - Learning to Fly.
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Judith Angela Broderick, popularly known as Judy Ditchfield, is a South African actress and singer. Judy Ditchfield is probably best known for her role as Stella Fouche in the South African award-winning daily soap Isidingo, and Mrs Rabinowitz in Ses Top’la but her career began more than 40 years before that, as a founder member of the Loft Theatre Company in Durban. After moving to Johannesburg, Judy worked in predominantly theatre, film, and television.
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The Naledi Theatre Awards are annual South African national theatre awards held in Gauteng launched in 2004 by Dawn Lindberg after the Vita Awards ended. Productions staged throughout the previous year are eligible, and the candidates are evaluated by the Naledi panel of judges.
Robert Craig Jansen van Vuuren is a South African comedian, actor, presenter, theatre maker, and writer.
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