Alan Swerdlow

Alan is one of South Africa’s most highly regarded theatre directors, with a string of award-winning productions to his name. Among his recent successes are “The Mousetrap”, “The History Boys”, “Mass Appeal”, “Tuesdays with Morrie”, “Hats Off!”, “God of Carnage”, “Travels with my Aunt”, and “Hard Love”. He has had the great pleasure of reviving the tradition of Pieter Toerien farces with “Perfect Wedding” and “Boeing Boeing” as well as directing the Roy Smiles comedy trilogy, “Ying Tong – a Walk with the Goons”, “Good Evening” and “Pythonesque”. Other notable productions among the more than sixty he has directed include the perennial “Handful of Keys”, “Amadeus”, “Round the World in 80 Days”, “The 39 Steps”, “Going to St Ives”, David Mamet’s “Romance”, “Some Girl(s)”, “Address Unknown”, “The King and I”, “Amy’s View”, “Life X 3” and “Honour”.
He spent many years broadcasting as SAfm’s Arts Editor, and produced the award-winning “Art of the Matter” as well as “The Bookshelf”. He also spent time in hard news as the Current Affairs deputy presenter (“AM Live”, “Midday Live” and the like), and his witty and acerbic film reviews garnered an enthusiastic following. He is a respected Cultural Commentator, writing on pertinent issues for a number of newspapers and magazines.
From time to time he narrates concerts for Richard Cock and takes an oblique and irreverent approach to the worlds of light and serious music.