There's been all sorts of news going on over the past week and public holiday that I thought I'd do a quick wrap of it to give you the latest in one place. Like a mix of The Showbiz Report and the news ('cos weather's included):
First-up: Lira's jet-setting Italian style at the moment. She spent last weekend in Sicily, as a guest at a schmancy dinner with Oliver Stone. The dinner was to pay tribute to his work and he was so smitten with her that he asked her to perform for everyone.
The dinner was part of the Taormina Film Festival which Lira attended because of her debut role in the flik The Italian Consul. The movie's been featured at the festival which has been happening over the past two weeks.
It was filmed in Cape Town and Lira co-stars alongside Italian actress *think correcto accent please* Giuliana De Sio.
TopTV have announced that they'll be sending Teargas to the 2011 BET Awards: all expenses paid type thing.
The group, who've been nominated in the Best International Act: Africa, will fly through to attend the awards and will also appear on BET's signature music series 106 & Park.
Nick Cannon will be doing an interview with them on the red carpet at the awards and their interview will air here on 106 & Park on Thursday 30 June.
As previously spilt, the BET Awards take place next weekend (on Sunday 26 June) and will be aired on BET on 3 July at 20h00.
As you'll have noticed, Season 2 of
Dance Your Butt Off didn't premiere on SABC1 this past Tuesday (14 June) as was scheduled. The channel's postponed the show as a result of production delays. The castings for boomblechops have happened and the show's now in production with a new premiere date set for Tuesday, 26 July at 18h30.
Also currently in production is
Montana 2.
As reported on TVSA, the series will be back after a two-year break, very possibly as a daily soapie. No premiere date has been confirmed.
In other not-happening news: SABC1 has cancelled the premiere of the Patrick Swayze series
The Beast, which was scheduled to start this month.
It's been replaced with the series
The Cleaner .
Benjamin Bratt plays a recovering drug addict who vows he's going to help other addicts.
It's based loosely on the life of an addictions councellor who goes by the name of Warren Boyd. People he's counselled include .. wait for it ... Courtney Love (
fail), Whitney Houston (
fail) and Mel Gibson (
EPIC fail) - not
a stellar line-up of counselling success stories.
It premieres this Tuesday (21 June) at 22h00.
Copy cat series or simply a popular trend? ...
Vuzu debuts a new dance series next Wednesday (22 June) at 19h30 called Masters Of Rhythm, which sounds like an exact replica of e.tv's
Step Up Or Step Out:
It's described as "The search for South Africa's best dance crew ..." more about it here:
Masters of Rhythm.
The fact that Vuzu's already done the dance crew reality show
Running With Reps suggests that it could be more of a trend than copy.
The big problem with it of course is that both e.tv and Vuzu are searching for SA's Best Dance Crew, at the same time - which doesn't make any sense. If different crew's win each show - which we can be sure will happen - which group is officially SA's Best crew??
Hillary Clinton. Let's talk about her for a bit. My theory on her rise to fame: Monica Lewinsky. I reckon it was the best scandal that could ever have happened for her.
One moment she was Bill's wife, the next Monica turned their marriage into a threesome and the next Hilary was suddenly a high flying politician. A coincidink? I think
not.eNews' Chris Maroleng will be doing an exclusive interview with her this Saturday (18 June) - he chatted to her during her recent visit to the African Union Commission. I can't remember the time of it though - when I heard the news I was too busy thinking "Monica Lewinsky - don't touch me on my studio."
It'll be on some time during the day ... could be 11'ish - but that could wrong too.
In Idols news, Idols 6 runner-up Lloyd Cele released his debut album ONE at the end of April and it's doing well:
Here's a recent video interview with him about it:
Lloyd Cele - his debut album and life after Idols.
e.tv has announced a new season of Forgive and Forget with a big casting change: no Doris Msibi.
Doris, who's hosted three seasons of the series, is on maternity leave. Replacing her for Season 5 is Kinalma Bashman, who was a news anchor and sports presenter on Soweto TV.
The season starts on Tuesday, 28 June at 21h00.
As for the weather: it sucks.Bring on spring! By my calculations we've only got one and half months to go: no-one will believe me but it defs starts warming up by 1 August doesn't it?