Isidingo is a South Africansoap opera, with dialogue mostly in English. The series premiered on SABC 3 in July 1998 and was broadcast evenings on SABC 3 from Monday to Friday at 19:00. Until 2001 it was titled Isidingo: The Need. Created by Gray Hofmeyr, the story is loosely based on another popular soap opera created by Hofmeyr, The Villagers, that was broadcast during the apartheid era in South Africa. Former series Head Writers include Neil McCarthy, Mitzi Booysen, Ilse van Hermert, Christian Blomkamp, Busisiwe Ntintili, Loyiso Maqoma, Liam J Stratton, Rohan Dickson, Bongi Ndaba, and Duduzile Zamantungwa Mabaso. On 29 November 2019 the SABC announced that the production is to be cancelled with the final broadcast being aired on 12 March 2020.
Premise
The main characters include the Haines family, the Matabanes, Vusi Moletsane the mine manager and the various residents of the boarding house owned by Maggie Webster. Barker Haines, owner of ON TV, is a high-living billionaire who often schemes his way into the lives of various people in and out of the mining town Horizon Deep, notably his daughter Leone. The Matabanes are a close-knit family who comprise a stronghold, of sorts, in the populace of Horizon Deep, with Zebedee as the patriarch. Other central characters are Lolly De Klerk, Frank Xavier, Parsons Matibane, Georgie Zamdela and Calvin Xavier.
Actress Michelle Botes, who had played villainess Cherel De Villiers since Isidingo's 1998 debut, announced her imminent departure from the series in October 2006, a week after being "snubbed" by The South African Television Awards. Botes next portrayed Ingrid in the rival soap Binnelanders, which directly competed with Isidingo on the pay-channel M-Net. She returned to Isidingo from 2010 to 2013. Soon after winning the Best Actress Award at the South African Film and Television Awards for her portrayal of Leone "Lee" Haines, 32-year-old actress Ashley Callie died following a car accident in February 2008. The role was not recast, and the character was written out by having Lee gone missing as she didn't show up for work, and later revealed she had died in a deserted field without specifying her cause of death. Six months after Callie's death, the series killed off original character Letti Matabane in a similar car accident, prompting a "nationwide outpouring of grief".
Legacy
Isidingo was the first South African TV show to feature the country's first gay TV kiss, which saw the characters Steve and Len kiss. It also made history when it screened the first gay wedding on South African television when the characters Steve and Luke wed. This episode was broadcast just days after same-sex marriage was legalised in South Africa in 2006. The show's executive producer Pumla Hopa explained how Isidingo was different from other soapies at the time: "The thing that sets us apart is that we deal with issues in society from homosexuality, xenophobia, mixed marriages and HIV-Aids. We introduced a different style of storytelling".
