South African actor, author, director and playwright Dr John Kani has been honoured by The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in England for one of his plays.
Kunene and the King is now among the 10 Best Plays the RSC has ever produced in its 60 years. Dr. John Kani joined Kaya Breakfast to share how the play came to be and spoke about how excited he was to receive the email with the good news news and how he had to read the correspondence twice just to be sure.
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This past week Dr. John Kani tweeted: “The Royal Shakespeare Company in England is celebrating its 60th Anniversary. Kunene and the King by John Kani are among the 10 Best Plays the RSC has ever produced in 60 years. I am overwhelmed by this honour with pride.”
The Royal Shakespeare Company in England is celebrating 60th Anniversary . Kunene and the King by John Kani is among the 10 Best Plays the RSC has ever produced in 60 years. I am overwhelmed by this honour with pride⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
— JohnKani (@JohnKani2) March 24, 2021
The play Kunene and the King, which was first performed in 2019, was subsequently cancelled last year due to COVID 19 restrictions.
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Set in a post-apartheid South Africa and, using King Lear as a reference point, the play shows how ancient antagonisms remain unresolved.
Kani also added that the much-anticipated release of the play in South African will happen sometime in the not so distant future. “I am looking forward to presenting it to the South African audience. The play is set in Orlando in Soweto, so South Africans will immediately identify where places in the play are.”
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Image: @theatre_direct / Twitter


