Nkuli Sibeko (pictured)is a happy person, the type who is always laughing. She stumbles over her words while battling bouts of laughter that always seem about to overcome her. Which is why it is only right that she wrote and directs the upcoming sitcom, Samsokolo, which will air on Mzansi Magic early next year.
“It was pretty much a brain-storming session between me, Mandla (Ndimande) and Tumi (Masemola), who are my partners from Black Brain Productions,” she explained, revealing where the idea for Samsokolo came from.
“We wanted to do a sitcom on taxi drivers; it’s not an industry you see on TV very much, yet it is part of everyone’s life, whether you take a taxi or not,” she explained.
However, other factors came into play and the primary story deve-loped in another direction.
“We realised that the taxi industry is an entrepreneurial business in the townships, but there are other booming businesses in the locations that we could highlight too. We came up with the saloon and added it to the storyline So our taxi driver is married to a lady who owns a saloon,” she explained.
“And then we were, like, if he drives a taxi then someone has to own the vehicle and we pondered what kind of people are taxi owners and added the character of a taxi owner. His wife is an organiser of stokvels and she also uses the stok-vels to run a loan sharking busi-ness. So essentially the primary characters all have some sort of self-employment plan going on,” Sibelo said.
Black Brain Productions is comprised of ambitious youngsters who realised their love for TV and comedy while still at university.
“The entrepreneurial spirit is something that is understood in the company so we thought, ‘let’s do a sitcom on that’.
“I was the primary writer, but we all worked together and also brought in some comedians to bring funny ideas to the show,” she said.
The cast includes the likes of veteran actors Lucky Legodi and Linda Sebezo and a number of young, inexperienced actors, too. The whole project, from concept to shooting, took only three months and the cast and crew are happy with the progress.
• Samsokolo is scheduled to air some time early next year on Mzansi Magic.