British Lions tour of South Africa
One of the year’s most highly anticipated sporting events, the British Lions tour of South Africa is set to kick off on July 3 in Cape Town where the Lions take on the Stormers. The eight-match tour concludes with three thrilling test matches against the Springboks at Cape Town Stadium and at FNB Stadium and Emirates Airline Park in Joburg. Our fingers are firmly crossed that the event can go ahead with spectators, but it’s anyone guess.
Tokyo Olympics
It’s still not clear whether spectators will be allowed, but organisers of the 2020 Summer Olympics are confident it will finally go ahead in Tokyo in 2021, set to open on July 23. Top South African Olympic hopefuls we can’t wait to see at the games include: the inimitable Caster Semenya, Marathon-runner Gerda Steyn, the Blitzbokke rugby sevens team, 400m track World Record holder Wayde van Niekerk, swimmer Tatjana Schoenmaker and young Paralympian Ntando Mahlangu who picked up silver in the T42 200m at the Rio games in 2016 aged just 14. This year surfing and skateboarding both make their debut as Olympic sports.
Major movie releases
There is a stack of major movies that were supposed to be released in 2020 that *hopefully will finally make it to the big screen this year. Fans eagerly await Black Widow and the starstudded Eternals from the Marvel franchise. Other major blockbusters include F9 (the ninth instalment in the Fast and Furious franchise), A Quiet Place II, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Mission: Impossible 7, Top Gun: Maverick, Coming 2 America, Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile, Baz Luhrman’s Elvis and the first film in a two-part adaptation of the sci-fi classic Dune.
Long weekends
If you didn’t manage to get a holiday in 2020, there’s are plenty of opportunities in 2021. This year’s Easter weekend starts on Fri, Apr 2 and there are two more long weekend holidays on the calendar so make sure to get your bookings in; Women’s Day (Aug 9) falls on a Monday, while Heritage Day (Sep 24) falls on a Friday.
The Head and the Load
Originally scheduled to come to Joburg Theatre in August 2020, William Kentridge’s epic stage production The Head and the Load hopefully will premiere in Joburg in 2021, although it still remains to be seen if restrictions on audience size will allow for the production to go ahead this year. Kentridge’s most ambitious production to date, this huge theatre work combines music, dance, film projections, text, mechanised sculptures and shadow play to tell the story of the millions of African porters and carriers who served (and in many cases, died) for British, French and German forces during World War I.