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Issue 00534 |
September 6 - 12, 2008 |
issn 0856 - 9135 |
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Front Page 1 |
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After Will Smith, BBC makes appearance on local streets
Arusha is abuzz with top-notch, world class showbiz activities and several parts of the “Little Big Town’ have turned into a Hollywood of some sort. Highly rated actors, performing under the auspices of the British Broadcasting Corporation are camping at The Arusha Hotel to spearhead the success of a situation comedy (Sitcom) to be broadcast worldwide under the name of “Taking the Flak”.
But the crew and
what they intend to do in
Arusha became talk of the town
only after Will Smith,
an American
actor
and
rapper
who has enjoyed success in three
major entertainment
media
in the United States and
described by the
Newsweek
as the most powerful actor on
the planet, had left the hotel
and Arusha last weekend. He
was in the country as UNICEF
goodwill ambassador. He visited
some health projects. Pilot for Taking the Flak started to be filmed in January 2007 in Kenya, originally entitled The Calais Rules but the project was shifted to Arusha mainly because of the civil unrest that followed Kenya’s last year’s General Elections. Two of the writers, Tira Shubart and Sandra Jones are journalists, and the series are filmed by an award-winning news cameraman. The show also features guest appearances from famous BBC journalists such as George Alagiah, Sophie Raworth and Dermot Murnaghan. Others starring are Martin Jarvis, Doon Mackichan, Bruce Mackinnon, Rhashan Stone and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. Most of the storylines are based on Shubart's experiences working with John Simpson, who she worked with for eleven years. One of the show's main characters, David (played by Jarvis), is based partly on him. The Sitcom coming out in 2009 is about a team of journalists reporting on a small African war. But
to the “delight” of most
Arushans, the war will be
fought in Arusha’s streets one
of them being a street off
Sokoine road by the CRDB bank
running northwards to Arusha’s
Central Bus Station, a perfect
location that may reminiscent
last month’s armed robbery in
that street. In the robbery incident, four armed, mean-looking gangsters, one of them a woman, stormed into an internet café at about 4.00 pm, ordered patrons to freeze, shot a fishmonger nearby and made away with millions of shillings, an assortment of cell phones and airtime vouchers. The incident occurred a few paces from the CRDB bank along the busy Sokoine road. An attendant of the café told reporters after the incident that when the four robbers entered the café she thought they were just normal customers only to find herself being held by the neck and a pistol pointed to her body. But
“Taking the Flak” will not be so
real, mean and life threatening.
It will be simply a sitcom:
An acerbic,
authentic and caustic comedy
that covers the entire progress
of a small African war, as seen
through the eyes of a team of
journalists sending back the
nightly reports for the BBC News
at Ten. The Hotel where part
of the acting will take place
is the Equator off Boma Road,
normally a favourite location
for receptions and a drinking
hole for local and visiting
executives. For the Sitcom
purposes the hotel has been
christened “The New Waterbuck
Hotel”.
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