Brian Berkman's Pringle Proms Presents Rista Watts!

Pringle Bay's beloved pharmacist steps into the spotlight

Brian Berkman's Pringle Proms is delighted to announce a very special addition to its 2026 programme — an intimate performance afternoon featuring none other than Rista Watts, the pharmacist most Pringle Bay residents know from behind the counter at the local pharmacy. What many may not know is that Rista is also an accomplished performer, painter, and poet with a passion for drama that has defined her entire life.

The afternoon will feature three performances: "Life", "Lag" and "Lewe" — a programme that promises to be by turns moving, humorous, and deeply personal, drawing on Rista's rich life experience and her lifelong love of language, storytelling, and the stage.

Rista's story is as compelling as her performances. Born and raised in Springs, Gauteng, she was shaped early by a mother who was a school teacher with a passionate belief in drama and creative theatre. From eisteddfods and school shows as a child, through a degree in pharmacology at Potchefstroom University, to a diploma in drama completed in her spare time — Rista has never stopped performing. She has appeared in plays, delivered monologues, spoken at functions, and read poetry, some of it her own.

Her most recent stage role was in the short film Padlangs, in which she plays the ouma in a family on a road trip. Filmed near Paternoster, the film has aired on VIA TV (DStv channel 147).

Beyond the stage, Rista is a passionate visual artist with a particular interest in portrait and still life painting, working in oils on canvas. The creative impulse, she admits, may well be hereditary: she is the great, great granddaughter of George Frederic Watts (1817–1904), the celebrated Victorian painter and sculptor whose allegorical masterworks — among them Hope, Love, and Life — are considered among the finest of the 19th century. Watts's sculpture Physical Energy stands at the Cecil Rhodes Memorial in Cape Town, giving the family legacy a distinctly South African chapter.

Rista moved permanently to Pringle Bay in November 2011 and has since become one of the village's most cherished community figures — opening the local pharmacy and earning the deep affection of residents across the Overberg.

Brian Berkman says: "Rista is exactly the kind of extraordinary person this community is full of — someone whose talents extend far beyond what most people see. We are thrilled to give her a proper stage."