Reviewing the reviewer Brent Meersman

 By Yonela kulati

Brent Meersman, a man with many talents 

Photo by Brent Meersman 

 Brent Meersman was born in Cape Town in 1967. His first job was as a news photographer in 1989 at the height of the turbulence that saw the closing days of apartheid. He has had an eclectic career – business entrepreneur, property developer, managing director of a hotel, and in the theatre world, he has acted as performing artists’ manager, producer, marketer and impresario. He has spent much of his time traveling – at last count 60 countries – having visited every continent including Antarctica. Since 2003, he has been the performing arts critic for the Mail & Guardian covering theatre, opera, ballet and dance. In 2005, he started South Africa’s first theatre blog: www.realreview.co.za He teaches a semester course on Arts Journalism at the University of Cape Town in the Film and Media Studies Department. Articles and more from his restaurant review column for the M&G can also be found at his food blog www.oncebitten.co.za He writes on politics and economics for the UK-based news magazine New Africa Analysis. His first short story was published in The Invisible Ghetto (1993), and his most recent in What Love Is (Arcadia Books, 2010). His latest novel Reports Before Daybreak was published by Umuzi in 2011. His novel Primary Coloured was published in 2017.

Brent Meersman did a good job while he was writing his review titled Bitten by the food bug , in September 20, 2013. what is so interesting about this review is that he firstly introduced what he does as a person since some people may not know him well some people may know only his name and the only know nothing about what he does do for a living what

 I liked about his review is that he perfectly introduced when he started his writing about food and readers appreciating his writing. What is so interesting Is that he fully explains which restaurant he visited at Cape Town as reviewer and how the waiters were acting towards him. As he mentioned that he started just as gastroculture surged globally” it sounded like he's so serious about his work as a reviewer. He does not stick to one place for his review especially reviews about food which is a great thing. What I like about his review is that he did not compare the restaurant he went to, to each other. He just fully explained his aspirations and expresses his opinion in a correct way I was so impressed by him providing the price so and the food name that he ordered from this restaurant. All in all I would like to say that Brent Meersman Is one of the good example being referred as excellent reviewer. 

 Confused but content written by Brent Meersman on 16 November 2012. Seemingly Brendon was enjoying himself while he was digging into Italian food. I was so impressed by his explanation while he was explaining the difference between the Italian food that is served in South Africa and the one that is served in Italy. Seemingly the most Italian food served in South Africa is Pizza and spaghetti which sounded so yummy. 

What I was not impressed with is that he had only one picture maybe if he provided a minimum of more pictures of the food was talking about his review would be more interesting than now. But I like the fact that at the end of his review he provided the address, and they contact details of the restaurants he was talking about. Regarding anything that Brent discussed In this review I found the information he provided all important which simply shows that he is good in review writing he knows his story even though the Italian food named is so hard to pronounce. His opinion on restaurants at Cape Town that sell Italian food made me to crave for Italian food for the first in my life. 

Rethinking the National Arts written by Brent Meersman in July 4,2015. In this article I would say that Brent good work by providing the sub header to firstly let the readers know what he was going to talk about because not all people know about Grahamstown and its festival. The most impressing part was the cover picture that he provided that was amazing. The way Brent explained how residents of Grahamstown benefits during festival time was so satisfying. The picture he provided was on point, the quality. All in all I think that he perfectly describe Grahamstown with it unemployment statistics.