11 – 19 Okt 2025
11 – 19 Okt 2025
Production: Nik Rabinowitz: Geriatric Millennial
By: Reid Donson
If you have ever been to a marathon, you would know what it’s like to see someone start strong and confident, full of energy, but be out of breath, dazed, and confused by the time they reach the finish line. If you attended Nic Rabinowitz’s latest stand-up special, you would be even more familiar with this experience.
Despite the title, Geriatric Millennial is anything but geriatric, at least in the beginning. For just over an hour, Rabinowitz takes you on a journey through age, religion, infidelity, and phallic imagery. His performance is an honest exploration of being a white, middle-aged, Jewish man in South Africa, and often touches on themes of masculinity and learning to let yourself be “awkward, vulnerable, and brave”.
One thing Rabinowitz cannot be faulted on is his crowd work. Being able to engage with an audience is a skill not many comedians have and that some choose not to partake in at all. Right out of the gate, Rabinowitz jokes with an audience member from Australia about having married an Afrikaans man, seamlessly transitioning into a comedic bit about Boer soek ’n vrou. He has the audience roaring with laughter.
Things start to go awry when the show enters political territory. A hush falls over the audience as he begins to lament about how we are “living in the best of times for humanity” but are constantly exposed to the troubles of those in other parts of the world, like Ukraine and the Middle East. This is only made worse by a joke about how “we like hummus, they like Hamas”.
From here, confusion ensues. Rabinowitz, who seems increasingly out of breath and in a daze, slurs his words and goes off on tangents, sometimes forgetting what he was previously talking about as he jumps between topics. The show begins to feel long-winded and directionless, as it lacks a through line to connect all the various jokes and themes together. By the time he says, “That’s the end of the show, guys”, even he seems unsure if the show is in fact over.
It would be unfair to be hypercritical of a stand-up routine that was undoubtedly entertaining and kept the audience laughing. However, the show very obviously lacked stamina and direction. Rabinowitz’s description of a mid-life crisis perfectly describes his stand-up special: “A slow, brutal unravelling”.
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Nik Rabinowitz: Geriatric Millennial
15 OCT 20:00
Spier Amphitheatre
