Gareth Woods

Gareth Woods was born in 1984 in the “bustling metropolis” of Klerksdorp, but spent his early childhood in several small towns in the Free State,South Africa Son to a preacher and an English teacher, Gareth struggled to fit in, in the strict Afrikaans towns and preconceived ideas of “preacher’s kids”. This was when he realised that he saw things a little differently than others.

Gareth left the Free State in the early 90’s (an achievement in itself) and started school at Grey Junior, in Port Elizabeth, where he excelled in various fields most notably public speaking, debating and English writing. These talents continued to flourish at Grey High School where he won several prestigious awards including, The Solo Singing Award, Oratory Award, Debating Award, Top English Student and even Top Afrikaans Student and Afrikaans Literature Award (not to forget his roots).

Gareth furthered his studies at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, where he completed a BSC honours in Biotechnology and Legal Theory all the while dabbling in performance media such as Toastmasters and the Live Music Society (where he was part of 2 bands). After completing his studies he started work in Durban with a Multinational Fast Moving Consumer Goods Company, while completing his LLB studies part time.

Mr Woods started doing stand up comedy in 2009 and has seen immediate and meteoric success, he has performed and headlined at various venues across Durban and JHB and was the winner of the 5fm comedy talent search (less than 3months after his first ever performance!), and opened for Trevor Noah’s sold-out, one man show Daywalker at the Lyric Theatre at Gold Reef City.

Gareth’s comedic style is one of witty analysis and story telling, which is generally thought provoking. He pokes fun at why we do the things we do and talks about his experiences of being a “fish out of water”, from being the English Preacher’s Kid in an Afrikaans town; to being constantly mistaken for being Arab; to being the tattooed, T-shirt wearing lawyer-scientist in a massive corporate enterprise and living in the big city after growing up in towns of less than 500 people.