SOAP ON A ROPE

Season 1 SABC3 (*193) 19:30 Episode 4

A journo stumbles on the soap’s secrets and even Florence’s poisoner confesses!

Zimbabwe-born Luthuli Dlamini swapped the UK for SA in the early ’90s and he’s become a mainstay on shows on just about every channel – especially soaps like Scandal! (2005-current) as Stan Nyathi until 2015 and Generations (1994-2014) as Scott Nomvete until 2013. These days, the 51-year-old is taking on the father-figure role of veteran actor Sello on show-within-a-show comedy Soap On A Rope (2017-current) and it sounds like comedy is his new love…

Describe Soap On A Rope. It’s a comedy about a soapie and the cast and crew who put Hard Body together. It has crossover appeal and humour that will charm different audiences from different backgrounds, like Suburban Bliss (1996) and The Coconuts (2008-2009), where different races, creeds – you name it – are brought together. And who is your character in the greater scheme of things? Sello is an ageing actor who loves his position in the cast as he thinks that he can pass down his acting wisdom to the younger actors. He is slightly arrogant because he almost made it big in Hollywood and he assumes that he can boss people around because he’s married to the soapie’s producer Carmen (Patricia Boyer). How did you prepare to play an actor? [Laughs] I referenced characters from TV and real-life to get into Sello’s head. Comedy isn’t your usual acting gig… I love comedy because it’s more challenging than other genres. It’s all about timing; there’s pressure to make it flow. You’re not the only famous actor on the cast – Ashish Gangapersad (Verbal) played Prada on Isidingo and Melanie DuBois (Zee) was Felicity on 7de Laan… It’s what I call an ensemble cast and it was great to work with such a cross-section of talent.