by Thinus Ferreira
The longrunning American daytime soap The Bold and the Beautiful that shut down alongside the rest of Hollywood will resume filming on Wednesday 17 June and become the first scripted TV series in the United States to resume production in 2020 amidst the growing global Covid-19 pandemic.
"The health and safety of our cast and crew are of foremost importance to us. We will be following all protocols set forth by the state, city, Television City, and the various guilds," says the Los Angeles-based daytime soap in a statement.
Last month The Bold and the Beautiful produced by Bell-Phillip Television and seen on Vodacom Video Play and EVA (DStv 141), was renewed for a further 2 seasons taking it to at least mid-2022.
The Bold and the Beautiful restarting production although Covid-19 cases in the United States continue to increase is similar to South Africa where the TV and film industry resumed production after an 8-week break because of the country's national lockdown period.
Two local primetime series, M-Net's The River produced by Tshedza Pictures for the 1Magic (DStv 103) channel on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV service, as well as Skeem Saam on SABC1 have since been forced to shutter again and deep-clean studio and office spaces following positive Covid-19 cases.
