Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION
Soft guitar music, sub-aural mutterings, slithery overlays of the loveable smile and at last the title scrolls: Hansie: Fallen Idol. We are into the first of a three-part interview with The Big C. It is hard to decide what M-Net and SuperSport were trying to achieve with this wretched exercise. I tried to reach the producer of the series, Russell MacMillan, on three occasions, only to get as far as his switchboard operator. In the end all the dodging and the “sorry, he’s in a meeting all day” excuses were abandoned and I was told that Russell said he wasn’t talking to the press and that he didn’t mind if I reported his attitude. It’s always very revealing when someone in MacMillan’s position declares himself immune from press inquiry, hence giving the finger to a good section of the public. It’s amazing what a dollop of power will do to some. Where do you begin in commenting on something like this three-part lurk around the remorseless Cronje fiction? You could actually praise it for the simple reason that it was essentially a deeply honest programme: it not only faithfully proffered its subject in all his counterfeit glory, it also revealed how abjectly low on the professional scale are the impulses that led to its making. We all know Hansie Cronje is a venal hypocrite, but those who pander to his manipulations are as, if not considerably more, repulsive. In particular this is true of Mike Haysman, the chief interviewer. As an essay in public stool-worship his questioning of Cronje was of the virtuoso. Turds have never been kissed this passionately. Without exception, Haysman’s questions were grovelling, smarmy and, on reflection, prompted the depressing realisation that the likes of Cronje will always have media subordinates as tacky as themselves. Cronje can have a dozen King commissions descend on his head. He’ll survive every one of them because he knows there will always be a Haysman or a MacMillan or a Clifford Maxwell out there, eager to snuffle around his unctuous Christianity and bogus regret. When it got to the second of the three parts, we were introduced to Mrs Cronje: the pathetic Bertha, all curls and twirls to her trompoppie voice but just as capable of serving up the fast-food piety as her deeply misunderstood husband. As the pair of them sat there amid their lurid belongings, clasping each other’s hands, it was the e.tv interview with that adorable Boesak couple all over again. What fuckwit morality guides our television managers? Wasn’t there someone at M-Net who could have said no to this? Another thing I wanted to ask Russell MacMillan was how much SuperSport paid Cronje for this affecting tour of his virtues, this endless disclosure of how wonderful his family and close allies (including his best buddy, Jesus) have been, how excruciating the anguish of his remorse. Russell, of course, would have had a better chance of assessing his product’s market value now that the SuperSport offices are based in Knysna. Hansie is just round the corner in Fancourt. I’m not implying that Russell is among the blessed few on the Cronje guest-golf-and-prayer invitation lists, but you know … Russell MacMillan is on record as saying he will not reveal how much he paid Cronje for these exclusive interviews; he even denies having paid him at all. Which is a different story to the one I got from one of his subordinates: “Cronje’s definitely been paid. But only Russell can say how much.”
Well, Russell is not saying, which makes me wonder whether he seriously thinks he can sit forever on what he deems as private information. In effect he is saying that he has decided to conceal a lengthy section of the ongoing Cronje corruption profit line. This should go down very well at the next session of the tell-it-all-or-else King commission. Refusing to divulge is, after all, a mutant falsehood. Edwin’s been quite strong on that point. My best moment in the interviews – bedpan of the match, as it were – was towards the end when Mike Haysman, crystal glass of classy red in hand, got on to the subject of Cronje’s attempts to entice Herschelle Gibbs and Henry Williams into his gutter. Somehow Mike totally forgot to ask him why he tried to rip them off R60E000 at the same time. Oh well, there’s seldom much light down in the perineum.