CASPER DE VRIES
Gauteng
He was born and raised in Pretoria where his father owned a toy shop. He attended Hoërskool Silverton where he was known as Cassie, and went on to study drama at the University of Stellenbosch. His shows were very popular amongst Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans and he even held shows in the London Palladium in London(2003 – 2006) where a lot of Afrikaners resided. From 2005-2008 he performed in Canada and the Netherlands. Later, from 2010 – 2015 he started to perform in English to appeal to a larger fan base both locally and internationally.
Casper de Vries uses satire, blue, character, observational, sketch and word play comedy styles in his stage performances, and he is very outspoken on topics such as humanity, religion, social norms, language and politics.
His professional career started in 1986 with Hallo Suid-Afrika (Hello South Africa), and has been on-stage year after year until he started performing his one-man shows in 1997 where he started gaining major success. Here is a list of Casper’s one man shows:
Walgwors (1997)
Wetter (1998)
Toet & Taal (1999)
Laat Daar Lag Wees (2000)
DiMensie (2001-2002)
Die Hits (2003)
Snaaks Genoeg (2004)
My Wêreld (2005)
Mondig (2007)
Broeders Ancestors (2009)
Gaan Groot (2010)
Vark in hel (2011)
Casper Goes Khaki (2013)
“Alive & Vrolik” (2016-2017)
He was born and raised in Pretoria where his father owned a toy shop. He attended Hoërskool Silverton where he was known as Cassie, and went on to study drama at the University of Stellenbosch. His shows were very popular amongst Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans and he even held shows in the London Palladium in London(2003 – 2006) where a lot of Afrikaners resided. From 2005-2008 he performed in Canada and the Netherlands. Later, from 2010 – 2015 he started to perform in English to appeal to a larger fan base both locally and internationally.
Casper de Vries uses satire, blue, character, observational, sketch and word play comedy styles in his stage performances, and he is very outspoken on topics such as humanity, religion, social norms, language and politics.
His professional career started in 1986 with Hallo Suid-Afrika (Hello South Africa), and has been on-stage year after year until he started performing his one-man shows in 1997 where he started gaining major success. Here is a list of Casper’s one man shows:
Walgwors (1997)
Wetter (1998)
Toet & Taal (1999)
Laat Daar Lag Wees (2000)
DiMensie (2001-2002)
Die Hits (2003)
Snaaks Genoeg (2004)
My Wêreld (2005)
Mondig (2007)
Broeders Ancestors (2009)
Gaan Groot (2010)
Vark in hel (2011)
Casper Goes Khaki (2013)
“Alive & Vrolik” (2016-2017)
Film appearances
Haak en Steek as Blertsie du Toit and Hanno Gelderblom
Alec to the Rescue (1999) as Train Steward
Soweto Green (1995) as Adrian Fluit
Sweet ‘n Short (1991) as George Weedle
Taxi to Soweto (1991) as a Telkom Engineer
Kwagga Strikes Back also known as Oh, Shucks-here comes UNTAG (1990) as Joop Van den Ploes
Egoli -Afrikaners is Plesierig (2010) as Duifie
Konfetti (2014) as Barry White
Casper’s live shows have been featured on South African television channels like SABC 2 and kykNET and Comedy Central Africa since 1986.
He wrote, produced and starred in a 3-series comedy variety show, Die Casper Rasper Show (2001–2003) and a soapie-spoof Haak & Steek (2003/04). In 2009 there was a one season spin-off “CASPER Rasper Weer” He hosted Doen met ‘n Miljoen!, the Afrikaans version of Deal or No Deal. In the early 1990s he also hosted an America’s Funniest Home Videos-style show called Devries In 2009 he guest starred in South Africa’s longest running soap, Egoli.
In 2010 he appears as a guest artist in the Afrikaans improvisation TV-show Proesstraat and as judge on the popular Afrikaans reality show Supersterre alongside Shaleen Surtie-Richards and Theuns Jordaan. He co-wrote and starred in “Cas oppie Kassie” on kykNET and “Showmax” in 2020. He has appeared numerous times on Comedy Central Africa in the stand-up comedy show, Comedy Central Presents…Live at Parker’s, in 2013.[1] Several of his stand-up, one-man comedy shows have also been featured on the channel including “Mondig”, “BroedersAncestors” and “Mondig deel 2”.[2]
On 31 October 2013 during an exclusive interview with Herman Eloff on Channel24, Casper announced that he was going to retire from doing his one-man stand-up comedy shows, after his latest tour “Casper Goes Khaki” is over. “Now I can concentrate on my painting and I can do movies and TV shows. I’ve done the one man show thing for 27 years now and it’s time to stop now,” Casper told Channel24 during the interview.[3]
In 2016 he received the Comics Choice Lifetime Achievement Award. He returned to stage with Casper de Vries- Alive & Vrolik (2016/17) and later produced a new comedy series on kykNET Cas oppie Kassie (2020), which was nominated for four South African Film and Television Awards, but ended his career amongst Afrikaans speaking people.
