by Thinus Ferreira
His longtime former colleagues Devi Sankaree Govender and Ruda Landman might very well return to the Carte Blanche studio this Sunday evening on M-Net (DStv 101) at 19:00 when the whole hour of the show will be a tribute episode to Derek Watts who died earlier this week after losing his battle against cancer.
Today kykNET (DStv 144) will rebroadcast a sit-down interview with Derek Watts when the episode of Hannes Aan Huis in which Hannes van Wyk talks to Watts at his home, will be shown again at 17:30.
Meanwhile, behind-the-scenes the Combined Artistic Productions show has immediately started to rework Sunday's entire episode as a tribute programme to Derek Watts.
John Webb, Carte Blanche executive producer, says that an hour feels like too little time to honour and showcase Watts' massive contribution but we're going to try our best.
Devi Sankaree Govender told TVwithThinus that few people are aware that Derek Watts "hated doing confrontational interviews. He hated it with an absolute passion and I had no idea about this because I was watching Derek from the time I was 15 years old when Carte Blanche started".
"I never would have guessed that. I joined Carte Blanche in 2002 and I just had this leaning towards catching the crooks and the bad guys and it was just something that I loved doing."
"It didn't take Derek long before he came up to me the one day and he said: 'I'm so happy that you do these stories and you do it so well because it means I don't really have to do it because I don't like confronting people - it makes me feel awkward."
"The thing with Derek is that he was just genuinely such a nice guy. He was the real deal. He actually felt bad for the skelms. He always remarked on that he just really found it difficult. He did ask the thought questions in his own way and he was always able to get answers out of people in a very gentle, almost kind, kind of way."
"He never like the confrontations and in a way we bonded over my confrontations because he was just so grateful and always acknowledged it when I did great work which I appreciated as a young journalist just starting out."
"I got to work with my television icon - one of the people along with Ruda Landman and Manu Padayachee, so I know I was the lucky one."
