The Bold and the Xhosa

The shift from traditional daily soapies to a telenovela format has been bold and certainly beautiful to witness, both locally and globally. In recent years we have seen storylines, like sands through the hourglass, become more engaging and pointed. Thus, moving away from the drawn-out plots that once kept South African audiences waiting endlessly for major secrets to unfold.

While the intense drama and romance remain a strong feature for both soap opera and telenovelas, the primary difference is the finite format of telenovelas compared to the open-ended nature of soapies. This is the approach executive producer and writer Siphosethu Tshapu has adopted for Mzansi Magic’sInimba. “Our philosophy was simple: respect the viewer.

Audiences today are sharp, engaged and accustomed to premium storytelling,” Tshapu said during an interview withMail & Guardian. A tale of love, sacrifice, family values and the unstoppable force of a mother’s bond with her child,Inimbapremiered on the channel last year in April. Like many, the expectations were that the big secret reveal will be the carrot dangled to keep viewers glued to their screens.

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But it was not so for Tshapu and his team of writers who dish out continuous bombshell episodes every week. “We decided early on thatInimbawould not “hold back” or stretch a secret for the sake of time. Instead, we wanted a pace that reflects the chaos of real life, where consequences arrive quickly and secrets never stay buried for long,” Tshapu said.

Delivering big moments weekly, he added, keeps the storytelling energetic. “But it also challenges the team to continuously reinvent and deepen the narrative. It’s a demanding structure but it has become part of the show’s signature DNA.” Inimba, Tshapu shared, was born out of a desire to tell a deeply human story through an unapologetically South African lens.

The inspiration came from watching how real families navigate love, loss, ambition and betrayal, often with extraordinary resilience, he added. He aimed for an intimate but epic exploration of the bonds that hold families together and the secrets that threaten to tear them apart.

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