He shares some thoughts with media update’s David Jenkin.

Why did stand-up comedy appeal to you and was it a career you had planned?

The appeal of stand-up comedy for me was I remember being at the Sun City Superbowl, watching Chris Rock in front of 5 000 people, bringing all of us literally to our knees because our stomachs were paining that bad. And I just love that one man was able to make us so happy and control us all at the same time.

It definitely wasn’t a planned career. I started because some of my friends said to me that I’d probably enjoy doing it because they thought I was funny and I always like making people laugh. And when I tried it, it was just my favourite thing. When you have an opportunity to do your favourite thing every day, you grab it with both hands and work as hard as you can.

What do you enjoy most about being part of a team, particularly with family? What are the advantages over going solo?

What I love most about my team is that I get to do my favourite thing with my favourite people. They’re not only my team, they’re all my best friends.

I think we work, compared to other family businesses, because we don’t compete with each other. So we drive each other, we’re hard on each other, we expect perfection from each other, but we also motivate and uplift. And I think that the fact we’re all trying to play in different spaces with one objective as a team of Goliath is what makes us win.

So the Goliath Comedy Club has been going nearly a year now - what’s it like to run a comedy club?

Running a club is hard. Restaurants are a difficult business. Comedians are difficult to manage. But, at the same time, it’s the most difficult and the most satisfying and rewarding thing we’ve ever done. And there’s never been a day that we wanted to throw in the towel. I think we may see a lot of diversity but the one thing we’ll always do is run comedy clubs and create platforms.

Do you ever get nervous before a show? And does imagining the audience naked even work?

You always get nervous before a performance, every single time. It’s weird if I MC, I can MC to a massive corporate of 5 000 people and feel no nerves. But when promising them a comedy set, it’s a completely different thing.

Mel Miller, or should I say the great Mel Miller, once said to me that when you stop getting nervous, that’s when you know you should stop doing the thing. He compared comedy to skydiving. He said if you stop getting nervous in skydiving that’s when you make mistakes. The nerves, I think, are just affirmation of the passion and excitement coming together.

My advice for anyone that gets nervous is fight through it, man, speak to them, not at them. And before going on, just remind yourself why you do it. I remind myself that this is the thing I love the most and all I’m doing is getting on stage to make people laugh, which is my favourite thing.

What advice would you give an aspiring young comedian?

Write five minutes of your own material. We frown upon plagiarism. Go and see as much live comedy as you can, it’s different to watching something on DVD. You must remember that what you’re watching on DVD is choreographed, it’s directed, it’s rehearsed. It’s performed in a safe environment, generally in front of people who want to see you do it – whereas comedy clubs give you a much ‘rawer’, truer, more energetic experience.

Go and watch as much comedy as you can, write five minutes and find an open spot near you, and get on stage. Just book your time, write your jokes, get on and do it.

What is one thing that has made you smile or laugh recently?

Something that made me smile recently was the recent protests, reading some of the placards. And if you read those placards you’ll understand that South Africans are some of the most unique people in the world with probably the greatest sense of humour.

Our diversity, our struggle is what gives us character and South Africans are just so expressive and beautiful. They make me laugh and they make me smile.

For more information or to book a seat at the Big 5 Comedy Show, click here. 

Want to find more about comedy and its link to the surname, Goliath? You can read more about Donovan Goliath's first one-man show in our article, A new Goliath is taking on South Africa's stand-up comedy scene.