The secret is out. The reason for Richard Branson’s frequent trips to our country is that we have nine provincial legislatures and two national parliamentary houses, providing enough hot air to propel him half-way around the globe in his regular balloon escapades.
I must confess that from time to time I slip into ”Keep Rich Branson Rich” mode by donating a regular fee to my local Virgin (In)Active Gym. So, to make him work a bit harder for his money, I recently came out of temporary retirement and made a reluctant comeback to the ring — otherwise known as a circuit — of cycles, sit-up benches and weight machines.
It came to me while I was imitating a hamster on a treadmill, pouring with sweat, but not moving forward an inch, huffing and puffing like a big bad wolf at the prospect of three little pigs who believed that they were safe in a brick house, but who forgot that it was an RDP brick house.
A bank of television sets in front of the cycles and treadmills temporarily takes our minds away from the question ”why are we doing this (besides it being a demand of the medical aid scheme maybe)?” My attention shifted first from the sports channel (which doubles as Cartoon Network when it features South African Super 12 rugby teams), and then from the gyrating MTV images to the more sober Sky television screen, also featuring a pop star. There was the alleged King of Grope, in all his reclassified splendour, with his catalogue nose protected by a sun-shield umbrella and the rest of him protected from parents by not just a few bodyguards.
It was the courtroom scene that grabbed me for this was not the real thing, but a reconstruction of the previous day’s legal proceedings, using lookalike actors to play all the roles of witnesses, lawyers, accused, jury and judge.
Here was an advancement on the contemporary fascination with reality TV: actors depicting the previous day’s reality. With a few extras and lots of bottles of tomato sauce, this could have been a much cheaper way for CNN to report on the Iraqi conflict.
Maybe it’s because they remember the MPs caught sleeping on camera or maybe they don’t want to reinforce the perception of a lack of transformation on the bench or maybe they’re all a bit scared that they can’t live up to Judge Judy’s benchmark, but local judges are a bit squeamish about allowing television cameras into their courtrooms. But here is a model that could work. Reconstruct the previous day’s legal proceedings and air it on prime-time television each night!
With all the court cases happening at the moment or ”coming soon to a court near you”, it would keep actors and directors in work for years! Take the Schabir Shaik trial for example. We could have flighted reconstructed half-hour episodes of the most scintillating exchanges each day and these would have attracted great advertising revenue from auditing firms and fax- machine companies.
With the prospect of our own version of SA Law about to take off as Nelson Mandela’s present and past lawyers square up over allegations of fraudulent art sales, hundreds of actors would be licking their lips at the chance to audition to play the role of Madiba. For there are almost as many Mandela voice impersonators out there (just ask Schabir) as there are Elvis lookalikes. And this impersonation of Mandela — in a reconstructed trial using professional actors — would be a legitimate use of his full likeness, not just his handprint!
It’s unlikely that the trials of 41 000 civil servants about to be arrested for corruption would make great television, but it could constitute the basis for a new mini-series called Upstage in which civil servants outdo the number of MPs arrested for fraud.
No one seems to know what’s happening with the National Arts Council court case, so it would be useful to have reconstructed scenes to keep taxpayers informed of how their funds were spent on bobotie and tracksuits. And who knows? Those tracksuits might just come in handy when next the actors make their way to the gym …