Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi all,
Vanilla are planning an update to the site on April 24th (next Wednesday). It is a major PHP8 update which is expected to boost performance across the site. The site will be down from 7pm and it is expected to take about an hour to complete. We appreciate your patience during the update.
Thanks all.

RTE television play set in South African prison. 1980's.

  • 11-03-2019 12:29am
    #1
    The Crowman
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 991 ✭✭✭


    I mentioned this in the tv programmes no one else remembers thread but thought it might be worth starting a thread to see if anyone remembers this. Circa 1985/86 I recall RTE showed this one off television play set in a South African prison, it starred two black South African actors. The set was very basic and I remember it had prison guards represented by either dummies or cardboard cutouts. It had this weird kind of Becket/Waiting For Godot kind of feel to it. I remember at one point one of the guys was wearing a blond wig pretending to be a woman and the other fella pulled down the zipper on his pants and said "Speedy Gonzales is coming". I have a funny feeling it was shown on a Friday after the Late Late Show and the two guys might have appeared with Gaybo beforehand.

    I've been trying to find out recently what it was called and who wrote it, to no avail. Does anyone else remember this?


Comments

  • #2
    The Crowman
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 991 ✭✭✭The Crowman


    I finally found out what it was. It was a production of a play called the Island written by Athol Fugard and the two actors who performed in it, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona. It was shown by RTE in 1986. All that's there of the RTE production are some stills, theres not much else info out there.

    Anyone else remember seeing this?




    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(play)

    https://stillslibrary.rte.ie/indexplus/image/0368/053.html

    https://stillslibrary.rte.ie/indexplus/image/0368/048.html


  • #3
    The Crowman
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 991 ✭✭✭The Crowman


    Came across this clip on YT which seems to be the same TV version. Only when I saw it the swearing wasn't bleeped out and this clip has music playing over it half way in which I suspect wasn't originally included.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcyOBQonABU


  • #4
    NewbridgeIR
    Registered Users Posts: 3,707 ✭✭✭NewbridgeIR


    Remember it being advertised / scheduled but didn't watch it. Wednesday night.


  • #5
    The Crowman
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 991 ✭✭✭The Crowman


    NewbridgeIR wrote: »
    Remember it being advertised / scheduled but didn't watch it. Wednesday night.

    Interesting. I remember them being interviewed all right. Maybe on the news or Today Tonight then.


  • #6
    George White
    Registered Users Posts: 1,284 ✭✭✭George White


    Both were in the Wild Geese.
    Kani's had a career resurgence. He was Black Panther's dad in the Marvel films and Rafiki in the new Lion King.
    Incredible, brave man. He and Ntshona won a Tony for the play, but it made them enemies in the Apartheid era SA. He had been imprisoned in South Africa because of the play. His brother was killed by the police while reading a poem at the funeral of a girl who had died during riots. He lost an eye in 1985 after being beaten by police. In 1982 he was stabbed after receiving death threats after a South African production of Miss Julie in which he kissed Sandra Prinsloo, a white Afrikaner.

    And he was the model for the first black Action Man, Tom Stone.


  • Advertisement
Advertisement