The Magic Touch

Entertainer Tbo Touch talks about his acting debut in the movie Blessers and addresses the rumours that he’s broke

- Qhama Dayile

IT’S a tangled web of blessers and slay queens, secrets and lies, money and cheating – and the man at the center of it all is thrilled with all the drama he’s created.

Thabo “Tbo Touch” Molefe is reveling in his new role. No longer “just” an entrepreneur, DJ and TV personality, he’s added actor, screenwriter, and filmmaker to his list of accomplishments.

His first film, Blessers, has barely hit the big screen and it’s already the talk of the town. In the movie, the Touch HD owner plays the flamboyant Mthakathi, a shady character who throws extravagant parties where he introduces blessers to slay queens.

“I thoroughly enjoyed delivering the few lines I had in the film,” the DJ tells us. “Mthakathi is a pimp, man! He’s crazy.”

We’re catching up with him on the red carpet for the film’s Mzansi premiere in Joburg. Tbo Touch, who produced the film and co-wrote it with Sasa Nqabeni and Kumaran Naidu, says they wanted to address the topic of blessers without being distasteful.

“Usually the woman is portrayed as a victim and the man as an enabler. We wanted to show both sides of the coin.”

Acknowledging that it’s a sensitive subject and “we are still a very sensitive nation”, the writers chose to tackle it as a comedy.

Director Rea Rangaka, who won a Golden Horn for TV drama iNumber Number, adds Blessers “has an interesting way of dealing with some really dark material, like the concept of blessers, cheating and the sex trade”.

“We’ve seen and lived with the events on screen all around us. The film is ‘funny ha-ha’, but even funnier as in, ‘Oh, snap!”