by Thinus Ferreira
2 TVs out of 10
The boring and disappointing 1 Night with Mzansi variety TV special of MultiChoice and M-Net that ran on Sunday night on its 1Magic channel on DStv, done from Dubai, unspooled as a perfunctory and pre-packaged song-speech-song advertorial promo that was little more than a paint-by-numbers television cliché.
Produced by Freshly Minced with Darren Hayward as director and executive producer and Warren Bleksley as TV director who also oversaw post-production work, 1 Night with Mzansi, done from the Dubai Opera House, ran with fewer obvious mistakes and on-air problems than MultiChoice's cringe-inducing pan-African Africa Magic Viewers' Choice Awards.
Thankfully there were no wrong envelopes to open this time.
The wardrobe stylist working on 1 Night with Mzansi was probably too scared, but somebody should have intervened and helped Imtiaz Patel, MultiChoice Group executive chairman, to get a tailor, who appeared on the opera stage in what looked like a cheap and badly fitted suit to read a speech from a teleprompter with crumpled pants that are far too long and that should be taken in at the seam.
This company's executive chairman appeared on DStv in a pre-planned, produced appearance - meaning that how Imtiaz Patel looks and how he is perceived, is and should be a part of MultiChoice's production budget and a carefully-crafted pre-production process for this show-and-tell. Why wasn't it?
But it wasn't just Imtiaz Patel's pants and appearance that was a GQ-no-no and too long.
1 Night with Mzansi - with Paul Egberink as creative producer and Lulu Mlangeni as assistant director and choreographer - turned out to be nothing more than tedious fill-the-block programming, alternating between must-include speeches from officials and ministers, must-include promo-filler like SKA telescope inappropriate for a "show" like this, interspersed with pick-a-culture-and-add-an-artist, song-and-dance numbers.
1 Night with Mzansi looked as if MultiChoice decided to splash some cash on the creation of a piece of touring industrial theatre and decided to just get some cameras as well so someone can film it and so that DStv can show the resulting marketing exercise. Two MultiChoice birds with one DStv stone.
With 1 Night with Mzansi, MultiChoice and M-Net fell in the same trap as the SAFTAs and other boring televised South African awards shows where executives in TV are not thinking about making real made-for-TV content for DStv subscribers having to watch it at home.
Instead, MultiChoice execs forced boring content into a stage show, filmed for TV, as merely something that they clearly thought would presumably make them and the pay-TV company look good, and in reality amounting to nothing more than show-off puffery that just tick boxes.
The problem with a hollow dog-and-pony show like 1 Night with Mzansi is that viewers quickly abandon any boring variety or awards show for its lack of actual entertainment value.
Viewers leave when they're force-fed irrelevant puff-piece speeches that run for multiple minutes with talking heads they simply don't and never will care about.
Besides some sound issues regarding the audio mix and level problems (the master volume of 1 Night with Mzansi was softer and not equalised properly by either the outside broadcast team or MultiChoice's ingestion team in Randburg) there were little technically wrong with 1 Night with Mzansi besides some preview camera shots that were ill-chosen for a few seconds as live.
Qualitatively however 1 Night with Mzansi lacked spice and pizzazz.
Mi Casa, Sho Madjozi, DJ Maphorisa, Daliwonga, Blaq Diamond, Nothembi Mkhwebane, Khuzai, Coenie de Villiers, the Drakenberg Boys Choir and the Mzansi Youth Choir all performed in what felt like a quickly forgettable episode of SA's Got Talent where nothing really stood out with any dazzling "wow"-factor.
Speaking of Got Talent, MultiChoice's 1 Night with Mzansi lacked anything remotely like the Ndlovu Youth Choir's astounding rendition of Toto's "Africa" at America's Got Talent and which is what something like 1 Night with Mzansi should presumably be: energetic, hypnotic, transcendently African in a surprising new way.
One wonders if the Arab dignitaries in the Dubai Opera House sitting in the sparsely seated front row were offended at all by host Nomzamo Mbata showing some side-breast, or why MultiChoice went to the trouble of setting up the semblance of a pre-show red carpet and showed snippets of it if there wasn't really any broad South African media representation behind the rope line.
Lots of empty seats were visible and shown but while Dubai has more relaxed Covid-19 safe protocols it's understandable that MultiChoice will probably not pack a venue like the Dubai Opera House to capacity or that people won't want to physically attend something like 1 Night with Mzansi.
1 Night with Mzansi lacked energy.
MultiChoice couldn't even bother to update its DStv electronic programme guide with any show-specific synopsis and the TV special tucked away on a late Sunday night felt quite low-key and like a metro TV train doing little more than going and stopping at pre-defined stations.
On-stage performances felt decidedly more like sideshow performances - complete as if someone filmed one of the Oscars or Emmys studio afterparties like HBO, MGM, Netflix or Vanity Fair where execs, dignitaries and some guests would mingle and a few party-hopping stars would drift in and out over the course of the night.
A Dance Moms-like Eisteddfod with obligatory costume changes and different people getting a chance to dance, sing and walk on stage isn't going to result in and does not make a "show".
Magic moments and true showstopper performances need to be meticulously created with talent and skill that make those watching it, go: "That is amazing!".
MultiChoice's 1 Night with Mzansi could have been - should have been - more than a forgettable and throwaway weekend trade show get-together, filmed for television in Dubai and foisted onto DStv subscribers watching back home.
