NEW SHOW, NEW BOOK, NEW KNEE!

He may be hobbling but Pieter-Dirk Uys hasn't been idle as he gets used to life after Darling and reviving his famous alter-ego Evita

- PIETER VANZYL

HE’S hobbling on crutches when he opens the security gate to one of the most beautiful art deco-apartment blocks in the Cape Town city bowl. 

“It’s bloody sore,” Pieter-Dirk Uys says of the knee replacement he had about a week earlier. His left knee is wrapped in a special leg brace with a built-in ice pack, but he’s exercising daily and hopes to be back on his feet by February. 

It can’t be easy – Pieter (77) has two flats above each other connected by a flight of stairs. But it’s his sanctuary, this slice of the Mother City with its sea of canna lilies in the garden below and backdrop of Table Mountain bathed in mid-summer light. 

This vibrant home has long been his Cape Town base and it’s where he’s regaining his strength for the year ahead. 

And there’s plenty going on. Evita Bezuidenhout, his hugely popular alter-ego, is once again donning her red heels – and this time she’ll be appearing in a dramedy miniseries, Evita in Excelsior. 

“Evita Bezuidenhout is finally in everyone’s living room with sagas and tales of love and loss, bitter and sweet,” Pieter writes in his blurb for the new show, which will be shown on kykNET with English subtitles. “Evita In Excelsior proves that South Africa’s future is certain. It’s just the past that remains unpredictable.” 

He had the knee op as soon as filming for the show was done, he says, and the recovery has been tough. “It’s almost like an amputation, to replace something like a kneecap.”