BREAKING. The Agter Elke Man reunion on Kwêla reveals some startling new secrets! Guess who got fired because she got pregnant!

In a brilliant and utterly fascinating reunion interview the weekly Afrikaans entertainment magazine show Kwêla on Wednesday nights on kykNET (DStv 111) just reunited Rika Sennett and Sulette Thompson who starred as Mercia Meyer and Suzie Bruwer in the superb South African eighties primetime drama Agter Elke Man [Behind Every Man] that was produced by Franz Marx.

Agter Elke Man is currently in its umpteenth rebroadcast on South African television on kykNET on Thursdays at 21:00. Rika Sennett revealed the reason her character, ballerina Mercia Meyer unexpectedly left the show. She was written out because of her second real-life pregnancy at the time!

Sulette Thompson made a joke about nobody knowing - more than two decades later - who the real daddy of her unwed mother character's baby is. ''Until today nobody is sure who's baby she really had,'' says Sulette Thompson. Suzie was dating Jack, but met Wessel who suffered amnesia after a motorbyke accident. It was later assumed that it was Wessel's child, but was it? Both also agreed that Agter Elke Man was an excellent TV show - if not the best local TV drama production ever made for South African television.

''I think it's the best South African TV show that's ever been made - with original storytelling,'' says Sulette Thompson. ''Looking at Agter Elke Man now, the first thing that struck me is the old South Africa against which the show is set,'' says Rika Sennett. ''It's a completely other picture now than what the situation was then. That's interesting to me, that aspect of it. ''But you know, I'm watching Agter Elke Man for the very first time,'' she revealed on the Kwêla couch.

''At that time I did the breakfast show Good Morning South Africa; had to wake up early, and I had two babies both cutting their teeth. So I never watched Agter Elke Man when it was originally broadcast. So for me its wonderful to watch Agter Elke Man now. Its a great story! The players are phenomenal - Christine Basson, Sulette, Cyrilene Slabbert and Dulcie van der Berg. They all played their roles so honestly.''

Rika Sennett also dished for the first time about an on-set Agter Elke Man secret and her sudden - and somewhat unexpected - departure from the highly popular show.

''What stood in my way was a second pregnancy. Franz [Marx] had run out of patience with all my pregnancies - so then something happened after that to my character which I'm not sure if viewers have now seen that yet - and then he got rid of me.'' She says: ''I don't think this industry is family friendly; its not even relationship friendly.''

[Spoiler if you've never seen it: Mercia Meyer is involved in an oh so dramatic horse-riding accident - brilliant! - and the character is written out of the show. And her crazy old mother sets fire to the mansion that burns down.]

Both were very vocal and adamant that South African actors are not paid enough. ''No, no. Definitely not,'' says Sulette Thompson. ''I don't even want to go into that,'' says Rika Sennett.
''And that's what's sad to me. Actors here grow old poor. They don't grow old with grace. And if you're earlier work earns you royalties when it's broadcast again, maybe you could have aged gracefully, but it's not happening in our country.