Tali is coming home. Economy class. What. The. Actual. Filming started this week on Tali’s Joburg Diary, the third instalment of the first ever Showmax Original.
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Having shared her wedding in Tali’s Wedding Diary and then her pregnancy in Tali’s Baby Diary, Tali is moving back to Joburg in Season 3, determined to get Jayden into the premium preschool, Little Angels Hyde Park, and reclaim her crown, or at the very least the title of Class Mom.
But planning a wedding and even giving birth have nothing on moving back in with your parents. Especially when you’re already at your wits’ end after years of baby rearing in lockdown, when Darren embraced the new normal a little too much, Goldprop all but dissolved, and your credit cards started bouncing.
The first ever Showmax Original, Tali’s Wedding Diary set a (then) record for the most first-day views on Showmax and was the most awarded comedy at the 2019 SAFTAs, taking home five prizes, including Best Comedy, Best Director (Ari Kruger) and Best Actress (Julia Anastasopoulos, aka SuzelleDIY). The hit mockumentary was followed by Tali’s Baby Diary last year, which is joint second in the overall rankings at the 2022 SAFTAs, with 11 nominations, including Best TV Comedy.
As Tali, Julia Anastasopoulos is nominated again at the 2022 SAFTAs for Best Actress, with the series also up for Directing (Ari Kruger and Daniel Zimbler), Cinematography (James Adey), and Editing (Richard Starkey and Gordon Midgley) – all categories the show won in 2019.
As Tali’s long-suffering husband, Darren, Anton Taylor cracked his first SAFTA nomination, for Best Actor, as did comedian Kate Pinchuck (Taryn), in the Best Supporting Actress category, where she’s competing against co-star Kate Normington (Tali’s mom, Michelle).
They’re all back for Tali’s Joburg Diary, as are fan favourites Glen Biderman-Pam, criminally overlooked at the SAFTAs as Rael Rosen, and Coconut Kelz, who’ll give Tali a Joburg makeover this season to help her dust the Cape Town off her. Also look out for Naledi Award nominee Sharon Spiegel Wagner (Bedford Wives) as Monique the Beak, the reigning Class Mom at Little Angels.
Produced by Sketchbook Studios, Tali’s Baby Diary is also nominated for Scriptwriting (Anastasopoulos, Kruger, Zimbler and Gilli Apter), Art Direction (Adi van Zyl), and Sound (Chris Querido) at the 2022 SAFTAs.
“I am so excited to dive back into the world of Tali,” says Anastasopoulos. “Sketchbook is so very proud of this project and it has been so wonderful to get the clan back together again this year. We’ve already been in stitches on set watching some of the scenes unfold and I think this season is going to be sensational.”
“I think we all need a laugh after the past few years, so we can’t wait to have Tali back on Showmax in November 2022,” says Nomsa Philiso, executive head of programming at MultiChoice. “It’s going to be the same Tali, with a very different bank balance, in a very different Joburg. Tighten your belt and sharpen those nails. Let the battle for Class Mom begin.”
Other upcoming Showmax Originals include Jahmil X.T. Qubeka’s epic African fantasy, Blood Psalms, a co-production with Canal+ International, starting 28 September 2022, and Season 3 of The Wife, the award-winning, record-breaking Twitter-topping telenovela based on Dudu Busani-Dube’s much-loved books, starting in November 2022.
