| Fresh faces of Sweet
Angels •One producer finally gets smart enough to bring
new faces to local soap
By IKENNA EMEWU
Saturday, April
23, 2005
 |
Owei
Photos: Sun News Publishing
|
| |
The scourge of HIV/AIDS has received ample publicity in various
dimensions. Some fight it in words, others at schools, hospitals,
churches, mosques while some more create dramas to pursue
the same cause. All these have made the battle against this
ravaging disease against man’s existence fairly successful.
The knowledge the society has about HIV/AIDS spread is that
promiscuity is a catalyst to the death harbinger. And the
society blames the wild fire incursion of the malady to loose
morals.
Fighting death in style
The urge to fight the HIV/AIDS problem from many fronts and
the need to cut down on immorality and the decay of our value
system has been attracting many proponents, the latest of
which is the Oliver Sweet Production group. The group believes
serious impact in the fight could be made through acting.
Its present foray into the task of restoring morality and
cutting down on the extent of HIV/AIDS death ravage is through
its new soap opera, Sweet Angels, a serial that has kicked-off
on Stv entertainment station. Lagosians in the past weeks
have added something enlightening to their viewing list through
this movie with bias for deep moral lesson.
New stars’ building base
A chat Saturday Sun had with the producer of Sweet Angel,
Mr. Emeka Johnson revealed that with the exception of two
artistes, all other actors/actresses in the soap opera are
new breeds in the industry. “The group went for upstarters
to create an avenue for the nurturing of new talents. The
industry seems to have been recycling a particular set of
actors and actresses over the years that the Nigerian film
watcher gets bored seeing the same face in every movie. That
monopoly has robbed other gifted persons the opportunity to
be projected and their budding talents not tapped. We have
a list of new fine faces, great talents and actors/actresses
with the fresh zeal to make names for themselves and go places”.
Moral gospel
Oliver Sweet Production Ltd., seems not have overlooked the
society’s worrisome roll-down into the valley of moral
distress, and decided to preach against those problems to
recreate the growth of the nation. “A situation where
a young student decides to have about two handsets and effectively
uses them, with the urge not to buy any handset of inferior
quality even when his family lives in poverty is rather absurd.
Our higher institutions are populated by greedy young people
who get easily carried away by the urge for materialism. They
do just anything to live up to that absurd standard they aspire
to. This lifestyle stops them from pursuing those acts of
honour, hardwork and perseverance. It is the same trend that
has made promiscuity, human trafficking, cultism drug addiction
and other social problems common. While they chase after material
wealth today, they are exposed to the dangers of contracting
HIV/AIDS, that is the reason every statistics data prove that
the most affected age bracket in the AIDS ravage is the youth”,
said Mr. Oliver Ubani, the Chairman of the production company.
Sweet Angel is here to dissuade the youths from this damaging
craze and re-create the foundation of morality and laudable
ethical background.
So sweet a tale
The 30-minute soap opera which comes on air on Stv every Monday
at 6.00pm revolves around some youths who were driven nuts
by their quest to grab the sky and put it in their closet.
It highlights life and style, the trials and tribulation of
the Nigerian youths in the face of economic hardship and the
uncontrolled urge to pull free from the wrench. Hardship has
landed Nneka, an orphan in the job of housemaid to make ends
meet. She is ferried into Lagos to live with Mrs. Johnson,
a married woman who made raunchy capital out of the distant
station of her husband who lives outside the Nigerian shores.
Mrs. Johnson keeps a pet boy – gigolo, or boyfriend
too old to be her child for carnal lucre. At the same time,
she has Chief, an old and never-retire sugar daddy for pecuniary
benefits. One benefit from any of the two agents is ploughed
into servicing and lubricating the other relationship. It
later dawned on Mrs. Johnson that the money Chief throws around
is gotten from trafficking in ladies sent abroad to prostitute,
and she finds interest in the deal.
Intertwined multiple deals
While the orphaned house girl falls in love with free guys
who interact with her madam, a lady who fell victim of rapists
few weeks before her wedding loses her expected marriage joy.
The deal shatters and many unthinkable things take the stage.
Watch it to capture a web of intertwined multiple deals and
made-up love affairs that are so spurious that they make nonsense
of relationships. Tracks of insincerity criss-cross in a circle
of people that know each other and each other’s interest.
Old hands on the job
The producer of this soap, Emeka Johnson is not new in the
game. He has survived 15 straight years as a model who featured
for the blue class of manufacturer outfits in Nigeria. His
foray into acting took its first turn during her undergraduate
days at LASU when he starred in ‘Nneka the Pretty Serpent.
He was to show his face again in Journey to Hell, Evil Passion
and later tested the production waters in 1995 when he handled
Return to Paradise, a movie he said was great but unprofitable
as the marketer played a smart one on him. He is now back
with a bang in this multiple-episode show that is to run for
five years. Oliver Sweet Production is already discussing
with international cable TV stations with bias for entertainment
to air the soap on a wider scale while the series on Stv continues
for local viewers. Another factor Sweet Angels has introduced
is the preponderant use of models as actors/actresses, a tradition
Emeka said is common in other countries where the movie industry
is more developed.
|
