JACQUIE GOLDING-DUFFY has her doubts about a new children’s TV show
EITHER you love them or hate them, but Felicia Mabuza-Suttle and Dali Tambo are not going away. Why not? Not because their shows are roaring successes but because they have managed, perhaps unconsciously, to produce the next generation of clones.
Jika Jika, the innovative children’s weekly programme on SABC1 (Mondays at 3.45) provides an interesting and amusing version of a miniature Felicia and Dali in the form of precocious Felicity and self-absorbed Dalindyebo.
Felicity is Mabuza-Suttle junior – from top to toe. The hair is very similar, although a bit coiffed (as wigs go), the outfit’s as chic and the attitude is just as cheeky but less irritating. She has the hand gestures down pat and her facial expressions are close imitations.
Meanwhile Dalindyebo is dressed in flowing robes – the kind Tambo glories in – and he also has gelled curls caressing his face. On the programme I watched, Dalindyebo talked to Boom Shaka. It was an interview that would appeal to the target audience (children between the eight and 14 years old) of Jika Jika station.
The idea of the programme is to change typical kids’ romantic notions about what it’s like to actually run a television series.
The young cast operates, of course, under the guidance of professional Comet Productions, but Jika Jika station is still very rough around the edges and seems to be constantly in rehearsal phase. The children are not “real” enough, because their lines are read, not said. And they’re read with very exaggerated expression. No viewer, even an eight-year-old, would be fooled into thinking that these kids are actually “running the station”. But rather than sound too critical, I will admit that it is fun viewing.
You get to watch an authentic children’s news bulletin, read by a squeaky Jacquenise Bailey (imitating her adult role models). The content of the bulletin gives information on what’s happening around town … at the zoo, for example, and other places where youngsters hang out.
Jacquenise is cute but, like most of the other young actresses and actors, she just doesn’t sound professional enough. Maybe they are not supposed to … after all, they’re just kids.
Comet Productions says it has discovered a place in the market for 10-year-olds and, having conducted extensive research, it found that potential young viewers want to be treated as grown-ups.
I don’t want to patronise young kids, especially 12-year-olds and older, but I fear the Jika Jika Station producers may have to fix up their act. The excerpts in the newsroom and the footage in the control room are two areas I spotted that need some serious attention.
Dalindyebo and Felicity’s shows are hitting the spot and I think they are succeeding in making young people feel as important as their adult counterparts.
I think the challenge facing Jika Jika producers is how they will bridge the gap between what will engage nine- and 10-year- olds as well as 13- and 14-year-olds. They are two distinct age groups with widely differing interests.