As the country continues to mourn ‘Papa Shirandula’ actor Charles Bukeko, fans of the seasoned comedy show have been wondering about the future of the Citizen TV production without its main star.
As a result, ‘Papa Shirandula’ producer, Stanley Ngige, has spoken out revealing that the dramedy would have to take a different direction.
Ngige, who is Citizen TV’s Head of Production, on Wednesday said they are still mourning Bukeko and have not definitively decided on which character from the show would take over as its lead.
“The show has to evolve with the times. It is all about creativity and production. Papa has a history of creating big names such as Njoro, Wilbroda and many others. I was a producer of Papa Shirandula for 15 years, we have had stars come, grow, and exit. For now, we will take time to mourn papa. Thank God, the show had stopped when it did. We had to protect stars(from contracting the Covid-19 virus),” he said.
“The show has big options, we are not short of characters and the stars will have to sit down with the producer to determine the direction. We don’t want the new stars to deliver less than what Papa did, he created a lot of big names,” added Ngige as quoted by Kenyans.co.ke.
The producer also explained that the show was not canceled as claimed in some sections but took a break on the back of the pandemic.
“The position was that with COVID-19 we went slow on production to avoid putting our actors in danger. It is not that it was stopped we went on a slow production. The only way to sustain the show was to go to classics,” he said.
Ngige also noted that ‘Inspektah Mwala’ is the only show from the roster that never shut down production because it changed its script to raise awareness about the deadly virus.
“Inspekta Mwala is because of law enforcement and to start awareness about Covid-19. If people are going to be arrested for not wearing a face mask, Inspekta Mwala was the best show to depict that,” he added.
