adminWalter Mswazie Masvingo Correspondent
COMEDY lovers in the country should brace for another episode of the rib-cracking jokes as Ziya Cultural Trust of the Sabhuku Vharazipi fame will soon launch their third production. The group’s spokesman, Wellington Chindara, who plays chairman in the popular comedy said they were working on transporting the DVDs from China where the play was being produced with high hopes that their third production would be on the streets this month.
He said while the monstrous vice of piracy was difficult to counter, on the new production they have tried their best to make sure that piracy “vultures” do not get any benefits from their sweat.
Chindara said the DVDs would be encrypted and difficult to rewrite and if by chance one unscrupulous person tries to copy, the disc would not be playable.
He said the play was a continuation of the previous works and assured their fans that they would enjoy the new production as they have managed to perfect some areas from cast so as to improve the quality of the play.
“The wait is almost over now. Our third production will be on the streets very soon. We are deliberately not mentioning actual dates for the purposes of protecting ourselves against piracy but our fans should be assured that they will have our new stuff this month,” said Chindara.
Chindara advised people against buying fake DVDs of Vharazipi 3 which he said were circulating in some quarters.
The hilarious comedy which has taken the entertainment industry by storm was nominated for National Arts Merit Awards (Nama) in 2013 but failed to win the award due to stiff competition from other productions.
However, the DVD got its fair share of viewership as it went viral throughout the world attracting comments from as far afield as the United Kingdom and United States.
Chindara said their first and second production sold more than 50 000 copies within a short space of time.
“Had it not been the problem of piracy, we could have sold even more than 100 000 copies of our two productions. However, we are happy because we managed to sell more than 50 000 copies on both Vharazipi 1 and 2,” he added.
derick.khumalo