SA television grows up
Miniseries tackles topical issues from a local perspective, writes Bianca Coleman
ALREADY picked up for international distribution ahead of its launch, Showmax original series The Girl
From St Agnes landed on the platform last week with all eight 52-minute episodes ready and waiting to binge.
It was a Thursday – a school day – when it made its debut – and yet the first episode broke the record for the number of unique viewers, beating Showmax’s previous original series record holder Tali’s Wedding Diary as well as drawing more than double the unique views of the most popular Hollywood series.
Not too shabby. It also had a remarkable number of viewers who binged the whole lot in one go; it’s about seven hours of solid viewing – excluding bathroom or kitchen breaks – and that requires a certain impressive level of commitment.
Armed with the scant premise of “girl at private school dies”, I saw the first episode at a pre-launch screening and my immediate take-away was “this is a great mystery – everyone is a suspect”. And that was a wonderful cliff-hanger right out the starting gates.
I later crammed the remaining seven episodes into a day and the only “spoiler” I will dish out is that the suspense and mystery is maintained right up until the very last minutes of the last episode. Until then you’ll be wondering who killed Lexi, the girl of the title. The series is polished and well-written and the performances are superb throughout. Possibly the best thing about The
Girl From St Agnes is that it is South African. You will recognise people you know and situations in which you have been.
The setting is a posh girls’ school, St Agnes, where Lexi Summerveld is found dead on the night of the Valentine’s Day dance. The police rule it as an accident, but one of Lexi’s teachers, Kate Ballard (Nina Milner) refuses to accept this and relentlessly pursues the truth. During the course of the series, many other shocking secrets are revealed – everyone is hiding something.
Difficult – and topical – issues of the day are examined too, like toxic masculinity. “It’s about a history of violence that is taught within families and school environments, passed down from fathers to sons and reinforced at school among peers,” says director and 2018 Safta winner Catharine Cooke.
Tristan de Beer, who plays Lexi’s ex-boyfriend Jason Clayton, says the show “appeals to you on a human level, and grapples with issues that are close to home – which we definitely see on international television in shows like 13 Reasons Why and Big Little Lies.
“What makes this show unique is that we are contextualising it on a local level. We’re not distancing ourselves by having an American cast and American script by an American writer and American director – it is fully South African.”
The creative team behind the show is distinctly feminine so there is a very women-led narrative dealing with things that happen to a lot of women in this country, in school, says De Beer.
“What’s quite spectacular about it is that it’s used a very appealing formula, the miniseries,” comments Jane de Wet, who plays Lexi.
“This formula has international appeal and it addresses global issues but within a South African context. It’s relatable and digestible for South Africans, which is definitely new. Issues are swept under the rug and definitely not exposed on national television to this extent. It still has appeal to an international audience because of the nature of the issues and because of the gripping storyline and the narrative.”
The Girl From St Agnes has been punted as dark and dangerous – which it is, going places no show on linear TV could possibly contemplate. How dark and dangerous, I asked De Wet and De Beer?
“What is nice about Showmax as a platform is that it doesn’t have the same restrictions as broadcast television and the project has an unflinching eye,” says De Beer.
“It’s not a situation where certain things are spoken about in hindsight or given a quick glance and cut away before the money shot.
“There are acts of violence, acts of oppression, acts of love, acts of compassion… and they’re all given the tender qualities they deserve, with nuance and grace. It’s not afraid to be dangerous, dark, or unhappy at times yet still hit you with moments of levity. It strikes a good balance.”
De Wet adds: “It shows real people with real issues, in South Africa, and it’s breaking down barriers and walls in the entertainment industry, which I think is necessary to start a movement for more truthful stories to be told in the future by other South African producers and directors.”
Local television just grew up, fast.