Great expectations

Creative producer Grace Mahlaba reveals how – and why – Scandal! brought their Tebello to life.

- GENEVIEVE TERBLANCHE

Scandal! fans are clamouring for Yvonne (Kgomotso Christopher) and Tebello (Litlhonolofatso Litlhakanyane) to stay together, especially following the death of Yvonne’s mom MaBetty (Francina Maili Morake) – Tebello’s guardian – in mid Feb. Their moving storyline is attracting literally thousands of comments on social media daily as viewers feel those emotions. And aside from the writing, which has painstakingly established a life-changing bond between Yvonne and Tebello (whose name means expectation), a lot of that impact has to do with 10-year-old Litlhonolofatso’s extraordinary performance. It’s a huge name for a small boy, but it’s one that hints at how huge his talent is – and Scandal! creative producer Grace Mahlaba doesn’t shorten it when she describes the lengths that the production team went to find him.

CREATING TEBELLO

Grace pitched the story after talking through the idea with one of the soap’s writers Omphile Molusi. “We needed something Yvonne had never done and something that we’ve never done,” says Grace. And when they came up with the idea of Yvonne’s sick mother and her child caregiver, Grace knew that she wanted the child to be a boy. “I am so used to girls caring for old sick people. I feel that boys are left out, I needed something to give a boy child hope. I needed something to let a boy child look at himself and think that it’s nothing about female and male. What he is doing is not a job just for women, it is a job that is done for human beings by human beings. He had to think, ‘With what is happening to MaBetty, I have to take care of this woman because she took me in when my mom left me here.’ So it was important to choose a boy.”

YOU ARE A MARVEL