Pieter-Dirk Uys is a drag queen whose alter-ego is Evita Poggenpoel Bezuidenhout, "the grand horizontal of Afrikaner politics". In the year following South Africa's first democratic election in 1994, Evita hosted a series of six interviews inspired by Barbara Walters, a combination of Dame Edna Everage and Oprah Winfrey, and yet intended to be none of these or all of them. The guests were leaders in government, the new politicians who until four years before were referred to tersely as terrorists, Communists, enemies and banned persons. "Evita's Funigalore" was a huge success, and in the book that followed, Pieter-Dirk Uys shared with South Africans his "honeymoon of hope", his own journey of discovery under the protective shadow of Evita's vast public aura, by taking us behind the scenes and onto the set of the TV series. Débra and I met Pieter-Dirk, bought his book and got Evita's autograph at the Civic Theatre in Johannesburg, South Africa on October 6, 1995 after we had seen his latest stage show, "Truth (C)ommissions".

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