BAFANA KHUMALO spoke to Dawn Mpati, one of the new faces and voices in continuity on SABC2 in 1997
There used to be a time in this country when being on television meant celebrity. Continuity presenters would also appear in newspaper features full of inane details about their lives. That was when the television test pattern had some entertainment value.
These days, continuity announcers might seem a waste of time, and the broadcaster has recently embarked on a pruning exercise of the SABC2 continuity roster. Out go some of the slightly mature presenters and in come a few new young turks.
Dawn Mpati is one of the new faces poised to take to the screen in the new year.
She is 22 years old and is doing her final year of a senior law degree. ‘I don’t think that I want to be a lawyer yet. I think lawyers should at least be 35,’ she said in an interview.
Born and raised in Grahamstown, Dawn is a feature of black South African society called ‘old education’ ‘ whites have old money; blacks tend to have old education. Her father is a judge and she went to some of the better schools, where subjects like speech and drama came as part of the curriculum.
This education stood her in good stead when she was chosen to be one of the presenters of the children’s magazine programme, Zap Mag. It was here that other people started seeing her potential for a career in broadcasting. ‘The director of that show kept on telling me that I should be doing this seriously,’ she says. Of course she didn’t take that advice until last year, when an agent sent her to audition for continuity try-outs at the SABC.
‘I was a nervous wreck because I had to do it — the audition — in Xhosa, which I speak only when I am in Grahamstown,’ she says.
As all good stories go, she was chosen and about two weeks later she was told that she had the job. ‘They have taught us script-writting, how to speak clearly and how to pronounce words properly and generally how to deal with the camera.’
Practising for a career in television seems to be a waste of time, given that she has already invested so much in a law career. Does she see herself dropping law altogether and concentrating on television? ‘It has crossed my mind but this is a risky career. I will not have television as a career on its own, I will always have a fall-back. The arts are not secure, you know.’
In early February next year she will take her seat in front of the cameras at the SABC. Is she nervous of her first day? She says she has done television work before, but Zap Mag was a pre-recorded programme allowing for repeats of shots and links. Continuity presenting will be a live setting where there is only one chance to get it right.
She wonders whether she is going to come under strong scrutiny. ‘I have heard that SABC presenters get letters complaining that the Xhosa they speak isn’t good enough …’