Cape Town will again be the backdrop of another international TV series this month when Cape Town, the TV adaptation of Deon Meyer's book Dead Before Dying starts on the Universal Channel with several South African actors.
The 6-part mini-series Cape Town, produced by all-in-production and Out of Africa Entertainment and distributed by Dynamic Television, is based on Deon Meyer's third novel, Dead Before Dying (Ikarus in Afrikaans) and will start on the Universal Channel (DStv 117) on Wednesday 7 September at 20:50.
Cape Town will showcase a backdrop of the Mother City and the Western Cape peninsula that will be instantly familiar to Capetonians and South Africans, ranging from places like Constantia and Tokai to Woodstock, Macassar Beach, Cape Town's city centre and other well-known spots where on-location scenes were shot.
The series was filmed in Cape Town last year, similar to American shows like Strike Back, Homeland, Dominion, Black Sails, SAF3 and Of Kings and Prophets that filmed seasons with varying success the past few years, and local productions like the Afrikaans crime drama Die Byl on kykNET.
Although a South African story, the two leads in Cape Town are foreign actors who are trying the South African accent on the tongue, with the Norwegian actor Trond Espen Seim playing alcoholic detective Mat Joubert and the American actor Boris Kodjoe as his new partner Sanctus Snook who portrays a former Hawks unit investigator.
The Cape Town supporting cast include veteran South African actors Arnold Vosloo and Ian Roberts, alongside Jody Abrahams, Colin Moss, Irshaad Ally and Jessica Haines.
Cape Town, written by Anna Tebbe and executive produced by Zeljko Karajica, Klaus Zimmermann and Daniel March, follows Mat Joubert whose wife Lara was murdered, who investigates two major cases with Sanctus Snook.
Firstly there a series of brutal murders involving men wearing masks of famous people and secondly there are the deaths and disappearances of young European women.
According to the producers, the gritty crime fiction series sees the characters shine a flashlight into the shadows of the city with Cape Town that becomes a character itself in Cape Town: culturally rich and beautiful, but also fractured and harbouring dark secrets behind its glamorous façade.
Cape Town is the second TV series based on a Deon Meyer novel, following the Afrikaans crime drama Orion that was broadcast on kykNET in 2006 and that was also filmed in Cape Town at the time.