What makes comedies work? There seems to be no one recipe for a blockbuster comedy. Some abandon formulas, some reinvent the genre, while others highlight the trademark identity of either the director or the star.
Take My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Saturday: M-Net, 11:00), which was billed as an unremarkable, friendly romcom and which certainly has a liberal sprinkling of clichés. Nonetheless, Nia Vardalos and John Corbett’s uncynical performances breathed a freshness into the formula that titillated audiences.
The fact that these tired old scenarios of boy-meets-girl or men-drinking-in-a-pub, such as in Men Behaving Badly (Friday: SABC3, 21:00), still manage to get laughs speaks about humour appealing to the familiar in all of us.
Yet not all of us are stoners and the success of stoner comedies such as Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (Wednesday: M-Net, 21:00) has stretched beyond the marijuana community. John Cho and Kal Penn star as two goofed friends with munchies, but only a specific fast food will do. Director Danny Leiner (Dude, Where’s My Car?) keeps the pace effortlessly, without lingering on the dumb bits and rollicking in the imaginatively absurd.
Director Tim Burton is the master of mixing the comic familiar and the fantastical. Catch Beetlejuice (Saturday: e.tv, 20:00). The film removes ghosts from the horror realm and puts them in the slapstick world. Alec Baldwin, Winona Ryder, Geena Davis and Michael Keaton star.
Also take note that after their 10th Anniversary Celebrations (Sunday: SABC2, 20:00), the SABC channels shuffle their schedules from Tuesday March 21. Mostly the changes effect daytime viewing with SABC3 reintroducing children’s programmes from 15:00 daily and SABC1 now offering Kids News and Current Affairs at 16:00 daily. Days of Our Lives moves from SABC1 to SABC3 at 16:55 and Lebo Mashile returns with her popular magazine show L’Atitude (Tuesday: SABC1, 19:00) in a new timeslot.
Of particular interest is the rerun of the seminal documentary series History Uncut (Thursday: SABC1, 14:00), comprising footage from the 1980s video collective Afravision, which filmed in trouble spots around South Africa.
The new daily series Rights and Recourses (SABC3, 12:00) is hosted by Redi Direko. The show aims to make the law accessible and will provide viewers with the opportunity to air their legal challenges to experts, live.
John Kani makes his television debut in the new local hospital drama Hillside (Wednesday: SABC2, 21:30). No, it’s not the same suburb that Sewende Laan is set in. Hillside is set in a brand-new state-of-the-art public hospital (wish fulfilment?) in Tshwane, peopled by young doctors and nurses full of passion for their profession (science fiction?) and the hope of a successful new hospital (all we have is hope). If this press release is anything to go by, Hillside may be the funniest comedy of all.