It's funny, and yet emotionally touching at the same time - Charly's Cake Angels (Saturdays, SABC3, 16:00) the new locally produced reality show following Jacqui Biess and her 3 daughters in the cake bakery, Charly's Bakery in Cape Town.
Here's a quick Charly's Cake Angels episode one recap with the funny bits, and moving bits, and intentionally and unintentionally funny quotes from the show.
''I'm the traditional Jewish mom who wants to keep her kids around her. So what better way than to employ them?'' says mom Jacqui Biess. She runs this white and pink marshmallow building under the mountain and not only has time for her daughters but also the customers, the other caker maker busy bees and even opens the backdoor herself to visitors from a local charity that the cake shop is helping.
The first episode of Charly's Cake Angels was all about introducing the various characters and then have mom and the daughters trying to come up with a creative opening title for the reality show, which ends up being a massive cake with the narrative of how Charly's Bakery came to be, visualised on it.
''It's fun, it's exciting, we do different things all the time,'' says one daughter, while another remarks: ''We make happy cakes''. Yep. All very clearly true.
The funniest and most intriguing character in the first episode is Frances Belle. Dear Frances is locked away in the upstairs. Securely. Because the good ''make the cake nice'' people have a tendency to run away. So Frances works on the upper level where nobody hardly every goes but to throw in some crumbs and slam the door shut again (jokes).
''It's actually terribly busy here,'' says Frances to camera who remarks that she doesn't know how long she'll stay. Yet its clear that the dear Frances isn't going to escape this place anytime soon (she started doing cakes when she did her own wedding cake years ago). Then, people scream her name. ''Oh dear. They're forever calling me downstairs. And they get so irate if I don't run,'' remarks Frances in the first episode's funniest moment.
The most emotional moment in the first episode of Charly's Cake Angels comes when Jacqui explains the wall art inside Charly's Bakery which serves as the inspiration for the show's opening title sequence. It's heartfelt and very emotional as she explains how her friend Antoinette did it, who've since passed away.
''Antoinette, she captured us. We created the original bakery together. She's been my inspiration and my muse. When she was killed in a car accident it was the most devastating thing Ive ever experienced in my life,'' Jacqui Biess tells her daughters sitting around her. ''The pain now - even with time having passed - it doesn't get any easier at all. Having her story up on the wall, and knowing that she wrote that – she's here.''
Later Jacqui says that ''Antoinette always said there should be a webcam in the bakery, that people would love to see what goes on in this crazy bakery.'' That is true, because the South African public would never have discovered the truth about poor Frances, or Max with the big hair who gets to come in and taste the cake every morning. Yes. Apparently that's a job.
In the first episode viewers see Jacqui in a frenzied moment, running to daughter Alex. ''Do they know about the big cake? No? Not at all? They don't know that they're doing it today?" And then, clearly stressed but with kept-in, perfect sarcasm: ''Stunning''.
It's a public holiday and Charly's Bakery is closed. Or rather, closed to the public. The women are still there, working; brainstorming. A customer, looking quite forlorn shows up at the glass windows. ''Don't make eye contact,'' whispers Jacqui as they huddle around the table, thinking of an opening sequence for the reality show. Meanwhile more customers are arriving at the door, desperate for 'em cake-ies!
Then, lo and behold there comes little dear Frances. (The public holiday must therefore clearly not be National Arbor Day because that's the only public holiday that Frances is allowed to be away and not make ginger bread men that can really walk.)
Another great moment is when things start to get tense between mom and daughters. Daughter Dani deadpans ''Can we really not discuss this? I'm getting a really tense jaw.''
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