Producers of hugely successful shows are chasing viewers in Latin America, where the genre was pioneered
Richard Assheton in Lagos
Sun 21 May 2023 09.47 BST
On a television set in thick green bush outside Nigeria’s megacity Lagos, the mood was buoyant.
“Welcome to my palace,” said Bola Stephen-Atitebi, a theatre actor who is grinning after taking the leap from stage to screen as a star of Itura, the latest hit in a booming new African telenovela scene.
She plays Queen Aderomoke, tasked with preventing her fictitious 19th-century Yoruba kingdom tearing itself apart after the sudden death of the king. The series which launched in August was nominated for a viewers’ choice award for best original telenovela, losing out to a Zambian programme, Mpali, in a ceremony held in Lagos on Saturday.
“Everybody who has the time to be awake is watching it,” said James Omokwe, the…
