By Remy Raitt

“I’m like a court jester, just give me a mic or a stage,” he says, and the entertainment industry is abiding. Taking listeners’ home every weekday afternoon on the Martin Bester Drive on Jacaranda 94.2 FM, Bester is also an accomplished musician, actor and MC.

He fronts the SAMA nominated rock band Kinky Robot, who played the Apollo theatre as part of the London goes SA show earlier this year, graces TV screens on Kyknet shows like Tweestyd, DKNT, Lekker Bester and Lekker Sport, appeared in local films Vrou soek Boer and Pretville and on stage in productions like Athol Fugard’s Hello and Goodbye and hosts a bevy of events and awards.

“This is what I was meant to do,” says Bester, who is a prime example of his own advice to those starting out. “This industry is set up for people to give up, and it takes a lot of believing but if you are meant to do it, you will.”

Starting out in campus radio while studying Psychology and isiXhosa at the University of Port Elizabeth, Bester then moved on to work at regional broadcaster, Algoa FM. His next move was to Jacaranda FM, South Africa’s largest commercial independent radio station, which he still calls home.

This was his second win at the MTN Radio Awards, last year he beat out the competition to claim the Commercial Programme Innovation award. He says the most important thing to keep in mind when presenting an afternoon drive show is that it’s the end of the work day for your listeners. “You need to be as entertaining and fun as possible,” he says. “We have fun in the studio and I think that comes off on radio.”

“We include weekly features, like Find Me Love (FML), which often use old concepts but they really work on radio. And then things like the Magic Mike [makeover show] makes use of story arcs which listeners follow week by week like a soap opera.” Bester says the fact that a lot of local stars and musicians want to be on the show also puts them in a fortunate position, “it’s lekker because it means they trust us enough,” he says.

When asked what his most memorable experience on the show has been, Bester recounts a surprise he sprung on Johnny Clegg with the help of Clegg’s son, Jesse. “We had Johnny Clegg on the show and his son was in New York. We got Jesse to sing one of his dad’s songs and Johnny just started crying, which made us all cry. It was this really big moment.” “It’s moments like these when we get to see something different about famous people that are really special,” he says.

Bester says one of his favourite things about the radio landscape is how technology is pushing it forward. “FM is radio is a theatre of the mind,” he says, and technology has afforded it a multi-platform approach. Bester says its advantageous that listeners can now go online to watch the actual clips of the scenes they imagined in their heads while listening.

When it comes to TV, Bester wishes that the South African industry would give new shows a bit more of a chance. “The local TV industry doesn’t have the confidence it should,” he says, “are we giving shows enough time for people to get into them?”

He encourages music fans to not let the local scene die. “I will always preach that if you enjoy local bands, then buy their albums, go to their live shows – that’s what really keeps them alive, not just the big festivals where hundreds of bands are playing.”

With each facet of his career moving forwards Bester says; “I am in a lucky space and I just want to keep doing it and enjoying it.”

For more information, visit www.jacarandafm.co.za or connect with Bester on Facebook and Twitter.