Alex Burger

Umlilo: Head writer – my new job!

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So my new job is head writer on a South Africa drama called Umlilo (the fire).  I’m working on Season 3.  It’s the story of a Zulu man in Johannesburg married to three women (wait, was the first wife just murdered?!).  We have everything: wives, jealousy, kidnapping, trucks running goods to the Congo, dark secrets emerging from the past . . . .

Working on the show is a total pleasure.  As head writer I guide the development of the story lines and then work with the six other writers on the scripts (while writing a couple episodes of my own.) It’s perfect: great cast, first class production company, wonderful writers, the chance to really dig myself into a show over a million people watch every week.

Here’s a summary of Season One.  Season Two now airing on Mondays at 9pm on etv. Season Three (which I’m working on) will air early 2016.

 

News . . .

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Winter has begun to recede – days getting longer, and I have many “news” . . . New writing class I’m teaching at Wits University, new television show I’m writing on, and a new home . . . the first I’ve ever owned.  A glass penthouse from which I peer down into the city.

1 August, 2015

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Listening to:

Reading:

Quote of the week:
Billie Holiday: The Centennial Collection Frantz Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth

“If the audience members didn’t laugh, it wasn’t funny. If they didn’t gasp, it wasn’t surprising. If they did not sit forward in their seats, it wasn’t suspenseful.”
–David Mamet

Durban visit . . .

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A trip to one of my favorite places – Durban. The city smack against the ocean, the waves, the mix of Indian, Zulu, white. These fish have not had a good night.