Think ‘Orange is the New Black’ comes to Mzansi as Mzansi Magic's latest drama, Lockdown, will be set in a fictional high security female prison. The channel promises maximum drama and authentic characters as they have in the past.
“Their fascinating backstories will hold you enthralled as they unravel to reveal the paths that led them into prison and behind locked gates,” promises Mzansi Magic.
Dawn Thandeka King will be playing the lead character, Ma Z, a tough leader who wants nothing more than to gain her freedom so that she can become a good and present mother to the daughter she left on the outside.
As a cunning woman who isn’t above using manipulation, she co-ops those around her in order to achieve her end goal.
One of those people happens to be the beautiful and talented Monde (played Zola Nombona), a young woman who left the cocoon of her small town life to pursue fame and fortune in the dazzling lights of Egoliwood.
And in a tale as old as time, what she got instead was infamy after her wily money-hungry boyfriend/producer Zakes (played Luxolo Ndabeni) introduced her to a notorious lifestyle that landed her in jail.
What would a story be without an antagonist?
Lorcia Cooper will be taking on the role of the tough-as-nails prison boxing champ Tyson (who literally fights her demons with her fists) and also happens to be Ma Z’s arch rival.
Temperamental, intimidating and confrontational, Tyson wants to rule the prison’s other inmates with an iron fist and has her sights at dismantling any kind of hold that Ma Z has. Complete control is her ultimate prize.
Nomsa Buthelezi will play Slenda, Ma Z’s often-delusional lieutenant. According to Mzansi Magic, “her gullibility and loyalty to her gang leader usually sees her being the one executing Ma Z’s bidding. The fact that she is mentally unstable and talks to her dead baby, means she should be in a psychiatric ward, but this works beautifully to her leader’s advantage.”
The prison’s Governor, Beauty (played by Slindile Nodangala) is the head whose “tough but fair mama” façade hides a manipulative and shrewd businesswoman. She wants her prison to run smoothly and her “girls” to give her the barest of problems.
“You see, Beauty does not want her fiefdom to be tainted because then, her underhanded and blatantly corrupt practices might be revealed. This is why she has wardens like her son Njabulo (Mthunzi Ntoyi), an academic underachiever who desperately wants to prove his worth to his mother by finally obtaining civil engineering degree and freeing himself from her prison – in every sense of the word,” said Mzansi Magic.
Completing the cast is the ruthlessly ambitious warder Sharon (played by Lindiwe Ndlovu), who is Beauty’s right hand but secretly wants to occupy the Governor’s seat herself. She believes she can do a much better job, but her real motivation – like some of the women she guards – is ultimate power. This is a woman who will do anything to ascend the throne, believing it will fill the void she has lived with all her life.
Lockdown will premiere on Mzansi Magic (DStv Channel 161) on Monday, 09 January 2017 at 8pm.
Image credit: thedailyvox.co.za