Patrick Shai as Paddido Mkhuseli Richard Tafane as Mac Darlington Michaels as Daliza Patrick Shai as Paddido Mkhuseli Richard Tafane as Mac Darlington Michaels as Daliza
She recently received a Lifetime Achievement award at the Saftas and creative director Roberta Durrant is nowhere near finished with her film career.
Having worked on the successful productions Madam & Eve, Stokvel and Montana, you would think she’d get tired and give the pictures business a rest for a bit. Not so.
Her latest project, Chandies, can be seen on Mzansi Magic every Friday at 7pm. The sitcom has a dream cast which includes small screen veterans Darlington Michaels, Patrick Shai and Tina Jaxa, among others.
“We felt the casting went well with Mzansi Magic’s feel of mixing the old with the new,” said Durrant.
The comedy focuses on two friends, Paddido ( Mathews) and Daliza (Shai), who have fled their home town after failing to pay their debts to a loan shark.
“This is an unusual story that sees the two con men take refuge in a church, as the church community is always gullible. The interesting twist about this story is that though the two friends are always up to no good, somehow it all ends up looking good. It’s a classic triumph of good over evil,” she explained.
Though the two main characters are con men, they have different personalities.
Daliza is a calculating smooth operator. He is stuck in his youth and dresses the way he did when he was a young man back in the 1950s.
All his smooth talk is to cover the fact that he was just another town- ship boy who grew up in an under-privileged environment.
Those for fall for his charm only realise when it is too late that all he wanted was what was in their pockets.
Paddido is the softer of the Laurel and Hardy duo. He is sensitive to his prey’s feelings and only does this line of work out of necessity and, of course, Daliza’s influence. He hopes to leave the life of crime and do something productive with his life.
Until then, he can be seen at every church service with his pal Daliza, trying to con the members of the congregation.
Generally speaking, the screen- writers create situations and characters that are so impressive they become somewhat unbeliev- able, so Durrant and her team tried their best to make the sitcom as close to home as possible.
“All the characters in this sitcom are identifiable. The stories are modelled around what we know about the public.
“We are not necessarily looking at the daily occurrences of what happens in our societies, but at the general stuff,” she said.
The show’s season was shot on a limited budget with the production team shooting an episode a day – something Durrant feels was tough on the actors.
“Mzansi Magic is still a young channel that one needs to support, so we work with what we have. We had some actors rehearse while others shot their scenes,” she explained.
• Chandies airs every Friday at 7pm on Mzansi Magic.