Award-winning comedian, John Vlismas is one of South Africa’s most creative, prolific international comics.

While outspoken and sometimes controversial, Vlismas still remains a firm favourite in the corporate market, and spends over 80% of his stage time entertaining executives and their staff with tailored material, proving that he has the ability to “keep it clean”, adapt rapidly and appropriately for diverse audiences.

John is also having great success, and positive impact on corporate entities with his increasingly popular The SharedWorld Business Talk, where he addresses key business executives and management within companies. This 1 hour presentation see’s a different side to the funny-man, with his thought provoking keynote business address.

2010 - a busy year for Vlismas, starting with the release of his film, Outrageous. This professional troublemaker was invited to join Bafunny Bafunny, the comedy cast that began their tour at the Royal Albert Hall and continued on a national circuit of South Africa, where ticket sales reached 60 000. All of this while Vlismas launched his now-popular Thought Leader blog for the Mail & Guardian, and continues to build a listenership on his syndicated late night radio show, “I Don’t Like Mondays”.

In 2009, we saw yet another side to this multi talented artist. In April, he debuted his much-anticipated solo art exhibition, "Off The Reservation." Which featured 20 oil on canvas works at the Obert Contemporary Gallery In Melrose Arch. While the work was serious in nature, Vlismas opted to open the exhibition on April 1st, determined to reference his comic roots. His last one-man comedy show, POW, premiered in June 2009, which was performed to sold out shows in both Johannesburg and Durban.

Vlismas has a host of international and local shows and festivals under his belt including the Yuk’s Great Canadian Laugh Off, Henry Rollin’s 2007/8-world tour and again in 2010 for Henry’s current world tour, Maulhelden Festival and Melbourne Comedy Festival to name a few.

John has enjoyed much local success with his previous one-man shows, all of which he wrote, directed and produced: Whacked in 2001, Aggravated Assault in 1999, Man in Black in 1998, and Mr Ballistic in 1997. In 2001, his two-hander with Bevan Cullinan, Grinder confirmed his ability to sell tickets. The esteem in which John is held by the comedy industry is evidenced by such events as his role in Steven Wright’s South African tour as support act, and his performance for SA Tourism at the Sydney Art Museum in 2004.

Regarded as the “Comedians Choice of Comic."

Here are some of the comments from his peers in the industry:

“As apartheid shriveled up and died the death it deserved, the night sky of South African comedy looked empty and drab. Suddenly out of nowhere came a blazing meteor called Vlismas and our world has never been the same again.” - Pieter-Dirk Uys

“He has a wild wacky energy. He looks like he’s the rep for red bull. It’s nice to see somebody that breaks the boundaries and is not scared to go forward. We all have our own genres and hopefully our genres make us different and that is one of the reasons that John is so special. He is so fast and so up to date. It is nice to see a young man who still has the same energy he started with 10 or so years ago and this makes him always a pleasure to watch. He is proud that he is South African and that shows that we have world class acts in this country. YOU GO JOHN!” - Your friend Barry Hilton

“John Vlismas, a legend, a role model and most important the best comedy brain I think I will ever come across. No one should ever under estimate what he has done for South African Comedy including the huge influence he had and still has in my career.” - Joey Rasdien

"If there were a true guru of comedy, we’d all be visiting John on the mountaintop..." - Riaad Moosa

"John Vlismas is.... ORIGINAL BRILLIANT ALTHOUGH SCRECHINGLY FUNNY, SAVAGE, HILARIOUS, NOT FOR THE WEAK ARRESTING OFFICER. FEARLESS. "Didn't think he'd get this far. . . though I always knew he had it in him." Not once apparently." - Mark Banks