The Aga Khan Hospital, Nairobi Kenya March 21st 2011
When the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation put out the TV show Street Legal in 1987 as its own domestic knock-off copy of the popular American programme LA Law, it was following what defenders of public broadcasting assume to be its mandate: producing programming by and about people from the same country. They do not say it has to be good, as every unwatchable PC programme produced by the Mother Corp can attest.
I’m thinking of this while in the waiting room of the Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi, waiting for the blood work to come back, and while the entire room is watching the latest episode of…. Nairobi Law.
Canadians are culturally similar enough to Americans that knock-off shows like Street Legal, look like, well, knock-offs, just a bit blander and less imaginative. What makes Nairobi Law interesting viewing is that the cultural context of the justice system and legal trouble in Kenya is considerably different—even Harry Hamlin never had to deal with witchcraft, scholarship fraud and illiterate police.
The technical quality of production is not terribly high, with lighting glare and some odd camera angles, but it is easy to overlook this for the sheer novelty of the subject matter. Some of the court room drama—which looks like it was shot in someone’s sitting room—is a bit staid and with the defence lawyers looking earnest—actors are probably not paid much in Kenya—but the show achieves some dramatic tension and plausibility. And whatever else this is head and shoulders above the Nigerian Nollywood movies with their ham acting, dreadful production and—obviously—unscripted dialogue.
Things are starting to get interesting in court in Nairobi—one man’s attempt to get a mutual help group (harambee) to fund a university scholarship is about to be exposed as a fraud—when I’m called in to one of the consultation rooms by a Doctor.
I actually love Nairobian soaps, and if somebody had sufficient imagination to run them on a major network, or at least some sincere variation of the genre, it would be a smash hit and a cultural phenomena.
Our hopes are with you, Douglas. You have tiger blood in your veins, and nothing is going to keep you down, as you have so clearly proven.
Stay well.
Michael, I have no doubt about your prowess as a watcher, commentator and connasseur of television media–but how did you become the biggest fan of Kenyan Soaps and sit dramas in N.America?
The lumbar puncture comes next.