SA Power 100 2013: Vincent Ebr

SA Power 100 2013: Vincent Ebrahim

Veteran stage and screen actor, most widely known for his role as Ashwin Kumar in The Kumars at No. 42

SA Power 100 2013: Vincent Ebr

_T2_6370 FEATURE

Veteran stage and screen actor

Bullet Biography
Born: Walmer Estate, Cape Town, 1951
Education: Livingstone High, Claremont, studied drama at University of Cape Town
Came to UK: In 1976
Lives in: London

Did you work in South Africa before you came to the UK?
Yes, I worked for the Space Theatre in Cape Town. It was a fringe theatre started by Brian Astbury, Yvonne Bryceland and Athol Fugard.

You were working with these incredible people but at the same time, South Africa in 1976 was a terrible place to be. Was it hard to leave?
It was a terrible place on one hand, but on another level it was an incredibly creative time at the Space. Ironically, when I graduated, I think I was among the first in my class to be offered a professional job in a professional theatre. It was ironic because there were no other opportunities. The Market Theatre was establishing itself in Johannesburg at the time — the Market Theatre and the Space Theatre were sister theatres — and they were the only opportunities where an actor of colour could pursue a theatrical career in South Africa.

There was a twofold reason for leaving. I left to broaden my horizons, so I went on a three month ticket to go backpacking, particularly in Europe. I guess there was a trail of travellers and I was hoping to possibly end up in New York! Anyway, I got waylaid in London because at the time London was — and possibly still is — a mecca for theatre. For an actor, the opportunity to live in London was an enormous opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I also then met up with an ex-teacher from drama school in Cape Town, Tessa Marwick, who was running a little theatre company and working for a much larger community art group, Interaction. I was invited to join and that started my stay in London. If I had stayed in SA my career would have gone along a completely different path. I really don’t regret stopping off in London, I think my parents would have loved me to go back to South Africa but one has to carve out one’s own path.

You came here in 1976 which was a difficult year in South African history. Did you feel you were coming as an exile? What were your feelings about South Africa? Were you politicised?
I wouldn’t regard myself as an exile; that would be presumptuous as I came as a traveller. I arrived about a month before the events in Soweto. I remember my first inkling of what was going on was when I walked into a local pub and on the television screen Soweto was exploding…that was my first inclination that South Africa was inflamed. But that wasn’t the reason I left. At the time I had a very ambivalent attitude, I wanted to go back but there were things I wanted to achieve in my career that made me stay. Politicised? Certainly, I was politicised form a very young age at my high school. My high school was a pretty radical educational establishment and my teachers were certainly very astute and at pains to point out that education was our path to freedom — which ironically is a quote from a play I am doing right now.

You are perhaps most famous in the UK for playing Ashwin Kumar in The Kumars at No. 42. What was that like? Has working on such a successful television show typecast you?
No, I wouldn’t say I have been typecast. The Kumars came as a consequence of me meeting the actor who plays Sanjeev, he came up with the idea of the Kumars. We met while working at Tara Arts, a London based theatre group which dealt with issues concerning the Asian community. It was at one stage labelled Britain’s foremost Asian theatre company although it was much more than that — it dealt with issues concerning migratory populations coming to London. He is a consummate performer and comic actor and he and I got along very well. After we both left, a number of years passed before he began to plug the idea of the Kumars to various companies. He was looking for a group of actors to set up the family to make up the Kumars and he tracked me down. It came about as a friendship which blossomed into a working relationship.

You won the Safta for Best Supporting Actor in the South African film Material. Are you very involved in the South African film scene?
Well, I didn’t go back physically to collect the award as I was rehearsing for another production. It was collected on my behalf by Craig Freimond who directed the film. Material was the first time I ventured back to work in South Africa after 37 years. I had always been looking for an opportunity to go back to South Africa to work, so it felt fantastic. After Craig offered me the part in Material I considered the script and it felt like the right opportunity. I’m extremely pleased I did it. What evolved was a very strong creative relationship with the director. We worked on the script via email and telephone conver-sation, particularly on the part I played.

What is Material about?
Material is the story if a family that owns a material shop.The father is a conservative, devout, orthodox Muslim who wants to leave the shop to his son. His son however, is more intent on securing a career as a stand up comedian. The father deems this to be against all the values of his community and Islam, but the son lives in a modern world and I guess the film is about a family — particularly a father and son — coming to terms with a changing world and particularly the changing world of South Africa. For me it was a very exciting opportunity to return to South Africa to work. While I was filming it I certainly had the feeling that we were creating a bit of magic so I am extremely gratified that it has received so much recognition, particularly in South Africa. It would be great to establish some recognition in the rest of the world, but it is a much larger task to get a film that is so particularly South African recognised internationally.

Read more:

SA Power 100 2013: Herbert Kretzmer

SA Power 100 2013: Dame Janet Suzman

Power 100 — 2013: Gillian Slovo