Now Newsnight is at it...

The BBC's cultural conscience has been pricked, it would seem, by the World Cup now reaching its endgame in South Africa. Either that or departments don't talk to one another. Singing for Life, Sunday night's documentary on BBC Four about the young singers who aspire to trade the township choir for the opera stage, also focused on Fikile Mvinjelwa, a Cape Town baritone who made it to the Met. Now Newsnight is reporting on another singer who has been on a comparable journey to stardom.

Pauline Malufane is the poster girl of Isango Portobello, the theatre company which won an Olivier Award for its novel take on The Magic Flute, with the entire orchestration taken on by eight marimbas played by the cast. The only instrument Mozart would have recognised was a trumpet, which took the part of the flute. Malufane played the Queen of the Night, while in The Mysteries, which the company brought to the West End last autumn, she played both God and Jesus. No typecasting then. She has also sung at the Proms and with the Berlin Philharmonic. Newsnight follows Malufane back to Khayelitshe, where she grew up and was schooled in the township choral tradition. Watch it live or on BBC iPlayer.

Isango Portobello has just moved into its own premises in District Six in Cape Town. The Fugard is named after South African theatre's greatest opponent of apartheid, Athol Fugard, who it was announced today will be directing his own play The Train Driver in the first season of work at Hampstead Theatre programmed by its new artistic director, Edward Hall.

• Pauline Malufane on Newsnight
• Hampstead Theatre new season
• The Fugard in Cape Town
  

Pauline Malufane sings "Summertime"