On Friday and Saturday the comedy show Urzila Carlson - Token African will have 7.30pm shows, and on Thursday, May 20, the provocative, insightful and witty Geoffrey Robertson QC - It's No Longer Hypothetical will be presented at 7.30pm.

As the title of Urzila Carlson's show indicates, she is the daughter of South African native parents. She was born in Johannesburg, South Africa's largest city, in 1976, and grew up on its outskirts, near the rural Kruger National Park.

Her parents separated when she was seven and she worked from her teens on Africa's largest newspaper, winning awards for her graphic design and photo retouching.

Carlson migrated to New Zealand in 2006 after being subjected to a series of thefts, including her car being stolen and an armed robbery in her workplace. During a break-in at her home, Urzila and her neighbours confronted the intruder with cricket bats.

She became a professional comedian in 2008, when she was 32, and moves between New Zealand and Australia to perform live shows and appear in television comedies.

Her popular Australian television show appearances include Spicks and Specks, Have You Been Paying Attention?, Orange is the New Brown, The Project, Studio 10, and Hughesy, We Have a Problem.

She has had eight sold-out seasons at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, with her 2019 show being that year's highest ticket seller. And she was one of the performers chosen to appear in the festival's introductory Gala event from 2016 to 2018.

The company presenting Urzila Carlson - Token African is Live Nation. The show's ticket price is $61.

The title character and performer in Geoffrey Robertson QC - It's No Longer Hypothetical is an international human rights judge and barrister who was born and bred in Sydney, but went to England to study at Oxford University when he received a Rhodes scholarship.

He stayed there after graduating and founded Doughty Street Chambers, which is the largest human rights practice in Europe.

He holds a dual citizenship and is a Master of the Middle Temple, one of four centuries-old ancient Inns of Court where legal professionals have had or attended weddings, gala dinners, garden parties, board meetings and AGMs since it was built in the 16th century.

The show, which is presented by Lateral Events, has the international human rights judge and barrister analysing Brexit and Trump in a post-truth era and calling for Australia's constitutional regeneration after the bushfires.

Robertson, 74, will explain what is really happening to the royal family and to Julian Assange, and how fake news distorts democracy.

The show gives an insight into Geoffrey Robertson's life and famous cases, and his current crusade to restore cultural property to the people - including Indigenous Australians - from whom it has been stolen.

From his outspoken leadership of students in the 1960s to his work fighting for the lives of death row inmates, Robertson's career has been marked by courage, determination and fierce independence.

He was involved in the prosecution of General Pinochet and Hastings Banda and in the defence of Salman Rushdie, Mike Tyson, Julian Assange and Lula (former president of Brazil).

Robertson also exposed the gun-running in the Caribbean by the powerful Colombian drug cartel and terrorist-type criminal organisation Medellin Cartel and helped to restore democracy in Fiji.

He is credited with changing the way many people think about human rights, notably through his book Crimes Against Humanity.

His autobiography, Rather His Own Man - In Courts with Tyrants, Tarts and Troublemakers, was published by Penguin/Random House in 2018.

The show's ticket prices range from Student $70 to Premium $146, with A Reserve tickets $106 and B Reserve $86.

Civic box-office: 4929 1977.

THE actors and production team have certainly brought out the timeless nature of this play that was written by American author Clifford Odets in 1934 when he attended meetings held by cab drivers and their union officials after the taxi companies in New York tried to force them to take wage cuts following the outbreak of the Great Depression.

The show, directed by Joanne Lawler and with a cast of 12 actors aged from the mid teens to mid 20s, has the audience sitting in a hall where the striking drivers are meeting.

Union officials are sitting at the back of the stage and occasional loud boos and protests are delivered by people standing behind the audience.

The actors adeptly move between the hall and the very different venues where the people affected by the strike live or the workplaces of their relatives.

In the first scene set outside the hall, for example, a taxi driver arrives home to find that a company that supplied their furniture has taken it away because they haven't been paying the monthly hire cost.

Likewise, the scenes in the hall make it clear that the striking drivers aren't happy about the way their officials are handling the matter.

Waiting fort Lefty runs for a brisk 50 minutes, with the darkly comic moments prompting much laughter from the audience.

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