Ndumiso Lindi and I are sitting on bar stools at an event where Joe Mafela and other comedians were to be grilled. Tumi Morake rushes in, looks up at Lindi and says: "on that stage, the gloves are off!"
Indeed they are as several comedians go for the jugular when it comes to their peers' professional and personal pursuits. But for Lindi, this just seems like a rehearsal for a bigger stage: The Lyric Theatre.
The comedian brings his newest one man show, Diluted People to Gold Reef City's theatre for one night only on Saturday 25 July. Before I have time to ask him if the grilling serves as preparation, Lindi says, "comedy is like this: literally, this is the first and last time you're going to do [a gag] this way so there is no time to test."
Unlike in his first one-man show, Colour Mine, Lindi is also done testing the waters of whether audiences will come out to a show that looks at race and how South Africans are more alike than different. The huge success he has since garnered affirms that. But Diluted People is extra special to him because it builds on that narrative, and hopefully, on that success.
"I wanted to call this show 'Colour Mine: The Return Baba' because it's the second show," he explains, "but I realised I have grown as a comic and so has my subject matter. This one is more personal. It's the story of Ndumiso growing up through hard times and the after effects of the rainbow nation. It's personal in that it's about my family, my culture, our values and South Africa."
It will also have to do as his first idea of a title - "Silent N, Soft D" - was probably going to draw some very disappointed adult entertainment lovers. "Now that you mention it," he says pondering the idea of putting "soft D" in a title, "that would've turned out badly! Luckily, I literally woke up one morning and had dreamt it was 'Diluted People.' I called my manager who said the show posters with that initial title hadn't gone to print yet."
Shortly before he mounts the stage to roll out disses, I point out that this grilling is meant to celebrate Mafela's legacy and ask him what he'd like to leave behind. "Tjo," he adjusts his ubiquitous fedora, "I want to follow in his footsteps. Even if I am just known as the funny guy in a hat on stage, I want to be the greatest funny guy in a hat on stage ever."
• Catch Ndumiso Lindi in Diluted People at the The Lyric Theatre on 25 July. Book at Computicket.