Theirs is a world of selling make-belief. Fantasy. An hour a week of the good life and indulgent escapism: jetsetting foreign locales, massive mansions and beautiful people. Neverending celebrity parties.
For the past 22 years on the South
African public broadcaster Top Billing
had only one aim: to whisk ordinary viewers away for one hour per week from their
ordinary lives – lives where bills are waiting to be paid, bad hair days are
much more numerous than Jeannie D's perfect locks, and where death and pain and tragedy stalk us – to a Neverland place. A nebulous TV wonderland where youth, wealth
and champagne flow freely and designer everything is everywhere.
But this past Saturday morning not even Top Billing could escape the painful
ordinary life – the real harsh, cruel one where a selfish, speeding, drunk or
maybe not drunk driver (we won’t know since the police didn’t do an alcohol
test) rammed a vehicle into the driver’s side of the car where Simba Mhere was
behind the wheel and instantly killed two people.
At Tswelopele Productions, a finely run
production company in Westlake Business Park in Tokai, the past 20 years has
seen a script for everything at Top
Billing under the fine-tuned hand of co-executive producers Patience
Stevens and Basetsana Kumalo.
Tswelopele has built up, from scratch, a
go-to plan for basically every conceivable production crisis (and there’s been
many over the decades): from delayed and cancelled and missed flights, to weather, to sickness; from pedantic celebrities,
cancelled shoots, no-shows, can’t-do’s and no visas, to altered deadlines and suddenly
moved up episode delivery dates and even postponed timeslots (part of the inexplicable
vagaries of the SABC).
On Saturday morning at 05:10am however one of the harsh realities of real life – the world where a beautiful, vibrant
life can be cut short in an instant – punctured the finely manicured TV machine
which has over years the honed the ability to bring viewers only the good side of life.
When Simba Mhere died there was no go-to
for the production company; no script for the pain.
This coming Thursday night on SABC3 at
20:30 the show that focuses on the vibrant, the celebrated and the beautiful, will deal with death on television for the first time in its history in the
only way it knows how: by remembering the loss of one of its own.
The South African lifestyle show which
never ever showed us sadness is now filled with sorrow.
'A pervasive sense of loss'
Simba Mhere's dad who was also in the
car during the accident which took his son’s life will be on Top Billing this Thursday – a symbol of
what the showstopper production lost.
Presenters already started to record
tributes, with Bonang Matheba, Ursula Chikane and others who couldn't keep back the tears.
On Thursday night the popular lifestyle magazine show that all others
on South television are measured by and which brought happiness and joy and
possibility to millions of viewers weekly, will – for the first time ever –
make them cry.
Tswelopele Productions hasn’t responded
to any media enquiries since Simba Mhere's senseless death Saturday morning,
but insiders were willing to talk about the "utter shock, numbness and
devastation" of the production company's private, and yet so public, pain.
"There's a pervasive sense of loss," said a longtime Tswelopele production insider. "This hit everybody hard,
especially Patience and Bassie. People are concerned about Jonathan too," said
the insider about Top Billing presenter
Jonathan Boynton-Lee who flew back to Johannesburg to be with Simba Mhere's family.
"They really were like brothers, it wasn't
some kind of an act," said another source. "They were both sortof the 'little
brother' of each other. At the same time. They would mercilessly rib each other but underneath it they were
fiercely protective [of each other]."
"They were both essentially individually hand-picked
by Patience through the presenter searches and to this day they felt like they
were 'the new ones' who constantly wanted to prove themselves I guess – to their
families, to their fans; even to the show, especially Patience.
"For them it was always in a sense 'them' against the world. You saw it every time you saw Simba and Jonathan's fierce work ethic. A really deep-seated need to make those around them proud. And so extremely loyal. Everybody's heartbroken over Simba
and also what it's done to Jonathan".
A TV moment that can't be scripted
The unexpected death will likely cast a
shadow over the new Presenter Search on 3 on SABC3. The show is looking for
three presenters for three different Tswelopele produced shows – one of them being Top Billing.
Although planned and announced before
Simba Mhere's passing, instead of an additional new TV face to join the crop of existing presenters, the reality show will now
feel like it's looking for a replacement for Simba Mhere - someone to fill his (literally) big
shoes.
Producers are already thinking of how to properly honour Simba Mhere's legacy
through that upcoming reality show.
In fact, Top Billing's tight turn-around productions schedule can now
actually do with two new presenters, although the company will stick with
finding and adding only one to the weekly flagship production.
This coming Thursday the Tswelopele
produced SABC sunshine show will also turn sombre when Jonathan Boynton-Lee is set to
make a live appearance on the "feel good breakfast show" Expresso done from Cape Town. He will for the first time talk publicly about his grief and
the loss of his "brother" Simba Mhere in a safe and protected TV environment.
And again it will be a TV moment that can't be scripted.
"It's just so very hard," laments a
source. "Everybody working here are miracle workers. Real miracle workers.
Day in and day out – the impossible. People here do and create and achieve the
impossible even under the most trying conditions and circumstances."
"But nobody is able to take the tears and pain away".
