[full]America has given us hit sitcoms such as Modern Family, Parks and Recreation, and Arrested Development, which we’velapped up though yearning for a fresh – and similarly hilarious – local sitcom shot mockumentary style.
Enter siblings Rethabile, Tshepo and Katleho Ramaphakela (by way of their production company, Burnt Onion, which produced SABC1’s My Perfect Family). They’ve come up with DStv channel Vuzu’s first foray into locally scripted programmes with the laugh-a-minute sitcom Check Coast.
Similar to Amy Poehler’s Parks and Recreation, Check Coast follows the eccentric – and, frankly, dense – employees of the fictional Centburg department of home affairs as they try to work through various controversies (read: “gaffes”) and crises.
There is nepotism, illiteracy, inefficiency – not to mention extramarital affairs – but the characters remain lovable.
The mockumentary genre – a parody presented as a documentary – has been mostly ignored by local broadcasters. But Check Coast is not to be disregarded.
The show, now three episodes in, stars Kabomo Vilakazi (playing Bheka Zonke), Khanyi Mbau (Lerato Moloi) and Muzi Mthembu (Simphiwe Mhlongaga), making his TV debut.
At any given time Zonke, the department’s director, will announce: “Here at Centburg home affairs things get done. Public efficiency is what we are all about,” but metres away his unqualified assistant Moloi (whom he met at a nightclub and hired on the spot) is eagerly packing her make-up kit into her handbag before slapping a poster reading “System Down” on her computer and saying: “Systems are down and we can go home.”
Katleho Ramaphakela, who’s appeared in Backstage and Isidingo over the years, said local producers and broadcasters still needed to catch on to single-camera, location-based comedies.
“It’s the one genre in which characters are able to say exactly what they mean and it can still be funny.
“Plus it hasn’t been tried in our country, so creating something different is what we love doing. Most local shows are reality or entertainment, which helped us in the direction that the show was going to take,” he said.[/full]