A fresh generation of British film-makers and stars are bringing Africa’s political dramas and human stories to the small screen.
By Serena Davies

Reel time: Eammon Walker in Moses Jones

Moses Jones Music Production Team

Da Ganda Boys With Hollywood Actor Eamonn Walker

For decades, Africa has been a minor player on British television, popping up on news reports of famine and conflict, or as a beautiful setting for nature documentaries. But finally a series of heavyweight dramas are coming up in the next few months that will open up a much wider view of this overlooked continent.

Starting next week on BBC Two is Moses Jones, a three-part thriller written by the playwright Joe Penhall (Blue/Orange) about the Ugandan community in London, and the ongoing legacy of Idi Amin’s reign of terror back in their homeland. This will be followed in the spring by Channel 4’s Endgame, a one-off drama about a set of secret meetings that precipitated the end of Apartheid in South Africa, with a stellar cast including William Hurt and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Also planned for a spring transmission is Sweet Delta, a BBC series about the oil industry in the Niger Delta and the horrific corruption and impoverishment of the region, starring Paterson Joseph and Naomie Harris.

So, why the sudden interest in Africa? “We’ve got a generation of film-makers who are highly politicised and they’re bringing Africa into the global village,” says Clarke Peters, the veteran actor best known as Lester Freamon in hit US series The Wire, who gives a moving turn as Nelson Mandela in Endgame.

Moses Jones Market Scene

Moses Jones Street Market Scene

Joe Penhall agrees. “We [Brits] are not as parochial and self-regarding as we were in the Eighties and Nineties and so we can see drama where we didn’t notice it before. After 9/11, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the invasion of Iraq, we have been forced to consider the rest of the world and ask how events in far flung places like Africa and the Middle East impact on us at home.”

These dramas follow the trend of other broadcasters shifting their focus to Africa. MTV Base has been broadcasting an Africa-based digital channel for four years now, and in 2008 staged the first African MTV awards.

Meanwhile South Africa has established a thriving film industry, attracting a procession of international productions (including the recent Channel 4 period drama The Devil’s Whore) with its tempting combination of attractive locations and low prices. “Back in the Seventies and Eighties it was Eastern Europe [that lured international productions],” says Clarke Peters, “now it’s Africa.”

This spring, Clint Eastwood will give the South African film industry the Hollywood seal of approval when his feature-length biopic of Nelson Mandela starts filming in the country.

Moses Jones Actors

Bbc2 Drama – Moses Jones Actors

 

 

 

 

 

There is no denying that, on the whole, the African stories that TV producers zoom in focus on the continent’s thorny politics and issues of corruption. Mrs Mandela, another BBC drama that has just started filming in South Africa will tell the story of the rise and fall of Winnie Mandela, while Channel 4 is developing a hard-hitting piece about a Somali woman forced into slavery.

But there is, among this forthcoming crowd of hard-hitting African dramas, one lighter exception: a full series of The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency following last year’s successful one-off pilot. Alexander McCall-Smith’s tales of a female sleuth in Botswana – “a sort of Miss Marple in Africa” as its new cast member Paterson Joseph calls it – are about as apolitical as they come.

However, Joseph rejects the idea that the essentially jolly series, with its depiction of an African country relatively free from the troubles that plague its neighbours, takes an absurdly rose-tinted view. “Botswana really is doing very well thank you very much,” he says. He sees it as a healthy “branch” of a general impulse to document the real Africa in these new dramas. “[We are showing] the topical, economic side to Africa but also the new face to us in the West: the Africa that is everyday and about something positive.” Joseph also stars in Sweet Delta and, after a run of acclaimed theatre performances (including his celebrated 2007 appearance in The Emperor Jones at the National Theatre), is much in demand on the UK acting circuit.

Joseph is one of the many big-name black British actors starring in these shows, with Shaun Parkes in Moses Jones, Naomie Harris in Sweet Delta, and Sophie Okonedo and David Harewood in Mrs Mandela’s. It’s a big shift from 20 years ago when, Joseph says, he left drama school with not a single major black star in the UK to look up to, except for Lenny Henry.

Perhaps TV drama’s new interest in Africa is partly inspired by the need to find juicy lead roles for our black stars in order, if nothing else, to stem the exodus of talent. (The Wire’s Idris Elba, and Oz’s Eamonn Walker are among those British actors who have gone to the US because parts are available to them there). Whatever the ultimate explanation for this new focus, it is refreshing to see an earnest attempt to put a more real vision of Africa on the television map. This may educate and inspire the audience – and hopefully provide some gripping drama in the process.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk