Flagging ratings!
Behind-the-scenes chaos!
A mediocre soapie crammed with dead-end characters.
This is the scenario of SABC3's new soapie drama
High Rollers Soap on a Rope which premieres on the channel on Friday, 7 April at 19h30.
The series stars soapie stalwarts Luthuli Dlamini and Sonia Sedibe who play the leading characters on a porno-sounding soapie called Hard Bodies. Let your mind wonder with the possibility of what it's about and then ground yourself with the scenario:
Hard Bodies has been on TV for four years, but ratings are dropping, and the show has become a professional cul-de-sac for most of the characters. Hard Bodies is set in an exclusive gym (called Hard Bodies), on the penthouse floor of a glamorous apartment block in Cape Town’s Camps Bay.
The characters in Soap on a Rope are all involved in the producing of Hard Bodies: there’s management, an administrator, writer and director, technical crew, and of course the scheming, insecure actors.
The action of Soap On A Rope moves between public spaces such as the set and floor and private like the dressing rooms, makeup room, dark corners and behind the set. This allows us to see our characters projecting a public face while also revealing their private insecurities, personal disasters and secret, even criminal, plans.
Luthuli plays Sello, the leading man, who happens to be married to Hard Bodies producer Carmen, played by Patricia Boyer. No-no, she's not the producer of Soap on a Rope. It's produced by Dapple Films and Thabede Menzi Films.
Sonia plays Tuki, the leading lady - described as a diva. Another case of art imitating life?
Others in the cast include former Isidingo star Ashish Gangapersad as Verbal, the Hard Bodies script writer, Ameera Patel as the Hard Bodies commissioning editing Adi, Kamogelo Mogale as the series hottie, Nina Hastie as Brenda (the PA-turned-sangoma), Melanie Du Bois as the make-up-artist, Sokhulu Mthiyane as the Hard Bodies boom operator and series villain, and Motlatji Ditodi, who dodged a bullet when she
left High Rollers and now finds herself in a coma as comatose Florence.