Bucket List and A Plug!

As the days creep by and the final twilight years of my life in this old and grizzled frame pass by, I occasionally give a thought as to what TV series and dramas I would like to have appeared in.

The one that springs to mind immediately is the TV show that had me glued to the black and white box way back in the nineteen sixties.

It was my weekly escape to another world and it came on a Saturday evening at five thirty when the melodious air of “Dr Who’s” signature tune composed by Ron Grainer rang through my grandparent’s lounge.

This piece of electronic music was recorded well before the advent of synthesisers and multitrack mixers. With the help of Delia Derbyshire, Grainer made tape-loops of a single plucked piano string and then cut, spliced, speeded up or slowed down various segments of the analogue tape giving us the iconic tune that is recognised today across the world.

Back in the mid-sixties, when the programme started, the leading actor was William Hartnell, since then there have been twelve others with the most recent transition having a sex-change as well, and for the first time ever the Time-Lord is to be portrayed by a woman, Ms Jodie Whittaker, who will give her marvellous talent to expanding the character traits as the thirteenth doctor.

Back in the sixties I watched every episode and religiously watched the transformation of Hartnell to Patrick Troughton and onto John Pertwee.

Unfortunately, then came my University and R.A.D.A. years and I didn’t have access to a television, so my interest waned. However, if I climb on board the TARDIS and fast-forward to 2005 when the writer Russel T Davies and head of BBC Wales, Julie Gardner became the executive producers of a new series, I again morphed into an avid watcher.

Since then there have been four different Doctors, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith. Peter Capaldi, and the last being Jodie Whittaker, who completed her filming of her first series in August of 2017.

My second choice is another iconic and viewed across the world English drama called Midsomer Murders, which came to the British TV screens in the late nineties. It is now in its twentieth season.

Adapted for TV, originally by Anthony Horwitz, from Caroline Graham’s Book-Series, called Chief Inspector Barnaby.

Like Doctor Who, the lead character has been played by, this time two actors, John Nettles and now Neil Dudgeon since 2011.

It is set in the fictitious English county of Midsomer. The County Town is Causton, a middle-sized town where Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby lives with his wife.

The popularity of the series arises from the incongruity of sudden violence in a picturesque and peaceful rural setting. Individual episodes focus on institutions, rituals, and customs popularly seen as being characteristic of rural English counties. Various clues in several episodes hint that Midsomer might cover the areas of Berkshire and part of northern Hampshire.

Each episode is a new story line. There are several recurring characters, like Barnaby’s wife, his junior assistant detective and a forensic scientist. The new characters for each episode are of course, the murderer and several red-herrings who could possibly have committed the atrocious act. Usually as the tales unfold a second and sometimes a third murder occur making Barnaby’s solution and ultimate arrest of the culprit even more fascinating.

A google search tells me that four actors I was with at R.A.D.A have featured in the programme as either the culprit, or as a red-herring and one has directed an episode, so I can see no reason why I can’t have a role.

Unfortunately, as I reside over twelve thousand miles away from the UK the request has never arisen.

The third programme is American and the reason I have not been approached is the same.

It is NCIS Los Angeles and it has never filmed in the far reaches of Southern Africa and in fact all its locations are in the US of A, even the scenes pretending to be Afghanistan and Mexico are shot at locations near Los Angeles.

This sort of franchise TV series gives the regular actors in the leading roles a lucrative income and even the minor roles receive a small income from the worldwide sales.

In South Africa this is not the case for both the regular cast and the minor roles. Our contracts work on a buy-out system and getting money for repeats from any of the three local broadcasters is a trying and fraught experience.

Action has now been taken by The South African Guild of Actors (SAGA) to right this terrible wrong and they have just made a presentation to parliament to have the Performers Protection Bill amended.

This diversion aside, are there any other programmes I would have liked to appear in?

If I think locally I’ve appeared in almost every single soapie since the advent of television way back in1976 plus a detective drama series, a period shipwreck drama series, a couple of Shakespeare’s, a post 2^nd world war drama about Italian prisoners of war in South Africa, a spy drama, and a sit-com.

Unfortunately, there has never been a political drama although with the political changes, constant corruption and court cases there is certainly enough material for writers to compose one.

I myself have put my fingers to the key board with an idea but no one has yet pounced on it and decided to raise the finance to film it, so I suppose it is time for you readers of this blog to have a look at it and maybe pass comment. I’ve entitled it THE DEAD MEN.

I must first give you readers a short history to the events which produce the DEAD MEN.

A free general election and the events of the last twenty-five years in South Africa have turned the country from the pariah of the world into a welcomed member of the Commonwealth and the United Nations.

This transition from the “Old” to the “New” has been called a miracle of diplomacy and political bargaining. The charisma of the late President Nelson Mandela and the negotiating abilities of South Africa’s politicians have drawn the bickering political parties of Northern Ireland to the country.  Mandela himself helped to guide the divergent forces of the Congo and Rwanda to reach an agreement.

What happened during the four years prior to the first free general election in South Africa are graphically described in Alistair Spark’s book “Tomorrow’s another country”.

The reader will quickly understand the intricacies of behind the scene negotiations that occurred before the release of Mandela and the unbanning of the ANC. It reveals that the ANC and representatives of the old Nationalist government’s secret service were meeting in hide-a-ways in England and Switzerland. At the time, exposure of such meetings would have been fatal to both parties involved.

These clandestine conferences and hide & seek strategies of the opposing political forces led to the creation of unique breed of men. They came from all the diverse racial groups of Southern Africa. They were conditioned, trained and supplied with weaponry by their power-seeking masters. The table-talking politicians used these men to uncover their opposition’s strengths and weaknesses.

To gain the upper hand these agents were unscrupulous. Journalists, lawyers, doctors, university lecturers were hounded, tracked down and killed. Political activists were banned and those who managed to cross the border were followed and executed.

Denial was the order of the day. As the ANC and old Nationalist politicians sat drinking whiskey in the comfort of an English county mansion their agents were committing atrocities that would shock the world.

Both sides were guilty. ANC-operatives bribed by the government became double agents.  Disillusioned, underpaid state security officers and police fed up with the indiscriminate slaughter also crossed the fence and became arms suppliers for the terrorists they were meant to be hunting.

The politician’s hands, to this day, are still unwashed.  Members of the old and new government were cross-examined by the “Truth & Reconciliation” committee. Winnie Mandela has a huge cloud hanging over her head.  Ronnie Kastrels and Dirk Cotzee, now members of the ANC, have been accused of bombing and murder. F W de Klerk has resigned from politics.

Several of the lower echelon of undercover agents turned to the “Truth and Reconciliation” committee and asked for clemency.  Some are in prison seeking amnesty.

Some of these agents have been linked to the “Third Force”.

Others have mysteriously disappeared. All this is recorded fact and is easily obtainable from newspaper archives. Yet numerous questions remain unanswered.

Who were the “The Third Force” and who controlled it? Was it the Nationalist government of the time? Was it the emergent “Inkata Freedom Party” with a strong Zulu support base? Could it have been dissatisfied “Umkonto Iswizi” cadres who were abused while training in Angola and Zimbabwe? Was it the homeland chieftains who were given their own armies by the government of the day? Or was it the staunch right-wing Afrikaners, with their fervent religious belief that South Africa was their God-given homeland? And what has happened to these men who were trained to work under cover?

The series drama called THE DEAD MEN will answer many of these questions and provide entertaining, serious drama to the South African and international viewing public.

It is set in the New South Africa and the stories revolve around the lives of three ex-uncover agents.

Fact crosses over into fiction.

Hannes du Toit (The Chameleon), Enoch "Welcome" Mtoba (Betjan The Rhino) and James Bronic Menyet (The Ferret) are three men in their mid-forties. All of them were under-cover agents. For which service and which government is never disclosed, only inferred. It is with these three men that the audience will identify. They will recognise part of themselves - the common man.

The complex personal histories of the three will never be explained in full but snatches of information will be supplied throughout the series, whetting the viewer’s appetite.

Fragments of their pasts that emerge during the series will show they have a common bond. They are good. Their pasts have made them so.

They are disillusioned by the hypocrisy of the human political animal. They have been betrayed. Their clandestine pasts make it impossible for them to lead the lives of normal people. Their pasts are hidden. Why? and Who hid them?

Hints will lead the audience to believe that their past employers may be responsible. Their past employers are protecting their own interests.

The basic plot line will be in English. Short ambiance sequences and character delineations will be in either English, Zulu, Afrikaans or a mixture of all three.

The use of English is purely with a view to overseas sales.

The pilot episode will be TV feature length approx. 90mins. This will establish the format and pattern and increase the viewers chance to identify with the leading characters. The pilot shows how the three heroes came together, what their common aim is, who their common enemy is. It ends with the formation of the DEAD-MEN team.

At the end of the pilot episode the three heroes have an advert placed in English/Zulu/Afrikaans in the daily papers.

The ad. Will read: "Need help phone 011.xxx.xxxx" An answering machine responds: "Thanks for your call, leave name, address, and telephone number and someone will be in touch."

It is from these calls that their assignments for each hour-long episode will be based.

Each episode will have a completely different story line. The only links will be provided by a few characters, other than the leads, that are common to other episodes. (i.e.: a police inspector, a forensic scientist, a contact in the CIA/MI5/KGB, an old Afrikaans spinster, a shebeen queen, a female official in the police.). These characters, the reasons will not always be explained, are willing and do help our heroes.

In each episode, depending on the story line, one of the heroes will be the "lead" with the other two supporting.

This highly emotive and complex scenario, set in a country with exquisite scenery, ideal weather conditions, a stable infra structure and a well-established TV and film industry, is an ideal project for this fictitious TV drama series.

In fact, the series will be South Africa’s answer to the A-Team!

THE DEAD MEN

PLEASE

I would be very grateful if you would make a comment, good, bad, or indifferent, they will all be appreciated.