(Dawn
Thandeka King, Lorcia Cooper & Slindile Nodangala)
It’s a local drama like no other on the small screen –
tough, terse and totally gripping. This is Lockdown,
Mzansi Magic’s newest and edgiest drama series to date.
Set in a fictional high security female prison, this Black
Brain production brings maximum drama delivered by authentic characters. Their
fascinating backstories will hold viewers enthralled as they unravel to reveal
the paths that led them into prison and behind locked gates.
The motley crew of Lockdown’s female inmates is led by the
tough Ma Z played by Dawn Thandeka King who was born in Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal,
and studied drama at Technikon Natal (now Durban University of Technology),
graduating in 1999. She is best known for her role as Lindiwe Xulu on Uzalo (SABC1 drama Series).
Ma Z is a 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. Cunning and not beyond using manipulation, she co-ops
those she can – be they other inmates or wardens – to meet her end goal. One of
those people happens to be the beautiful and talented Monde (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. Instead, what she got was infamy,
thanks to her wily money-hungry boyfriend/producer Zakes (Luxolo Ndabeni), who
introduced her to a notorious lifestyle that landed her in jail.
Ma Z’s arch rival is the tough-as-nails prison boxing champ
Tyson (Lorcia Cooper), who literally fights her demons with her fists.
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. The
often-delusional Slenda (Nomsa Buthelezi) acts as Ma Z’s lieutenant. 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.
Beauty (Slindile Nodangala) is the prison’s Governor, 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.
There’s also the ruthlessly ambitious warder Sharon (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 is an
exciting new series that will raise the bar high for South African television
drama; there’s nothing like it on our screens. Mzansi Magic viewers are in for
a treat because this is gripping stuff. Each episode is guaranteed to keep you
on the edge of your seat and leave you craving more,” says M-Net’s Head of
Drama, Reneilwe Sema. “These characters are authentically South African and
their stories are recognisable to many of us. Viewers will alternately love and
vilify them because they will recognise someone they know, have heard of or
even a little bit of themselves in the characters.”
Lockdown will
premiere on Mzansi Magic (DStv Channel 161) in January, 2017.
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