A scene from The Prefects.
On Wednesday, NTV Uganda premiered a new TV show, the Prefects, a high school drama that brings East African talent from Kenya and Uganda in one place. The show Prefects in a nutshell follows the students of Mvule where the head prefect and his crew rule through fear.
When new student Lisa Suubi, portrayed by Racheal Nduhukire from Sanyu, is wrongly accused, she has had enough.
Teaming up with a group of misfits, they plan daring pranks and secret missions to take back control. Together, they fight to restore fun, friendship, and fairness to the school.
Basically, that is what the show is about, of course, there are other players in Lisa’s scheme while Solomon Bukka the head prefect, portrayed by Jibril Drake, too has his team of prefects trying to maintain the status quo.
The show airs on NTV Uganda every Wednesday and Citizen TV on Saturday. Both TVs have repeats on Sunday.
There is a lot to unpack with Prefects if the first episode is anything to go by.
Produced by Minimax Production company, the show does not is nearer to the truth of what happens in Ugandan schools than one could imagine.
But it may not be that shocking, for years Kenyans have been flocking to Ugandan schools and universities, thus this collaboration and much of the accuracy is not far-fetched.
There are many schools where prefects have a lot of power and some cases take it upon themselves to punish fellow students – Mvule High has much of this in the mix with Solomon’s leadership, they have managed to divide the school and frustrate those they don’t like.
Prefects takes a trip to the memory lane where some student leaders were hell-bent on showing off their power, the only difference is that on the show, the students are willing to fight back.
Besides the relatable storyline however, what makes the teen drama explosive are the production values it wraps itself into, from the casting, which from the Ugandan side was done by Ideal Casting to costuming, hairstyling and production design, the show is onto something.
They blended their cast bringing together seasonal faces such as Melvin Alusa from the Netflix original, Country Queen, Crime and Justice, to films such as Subira, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and Mission to Rescue among others, Vanessa Okeyo from the Showmax hit, Second Family, Uganda’s Housen Mushema, from Pearl Magic Prime’s telenovela Sanyu and films such as Veronica’s Wish and Makula, Tracy Kababito also from Sanyu, Mukisa and I Eat What I Want among others.
Of course, they throw a lot more surprises in the cast such as TikTok lockdown sensation Aziad Nasenya who shows up in Mvule High as the Maths teacher to Natasha Sinayobye, fresh from another Netflix original, Volume and films, Bala Bala Sese and Sixteen Rounds.
Then there is Michael Tamale, who has made waves on the stage and behind it, being part of projects such as Merchant of Venice, Seconds 2 and directing an audio play for Kampala International Festival.
Compared to Sinayobye and Alusa, Nduhukire, Nasenya, Kababito and Tamale are rising actors with a different kind of drive and ambition. Most of them already have a life on Instagram and TikTok, something they brought to the project sparking interest even before the show premiered. But probably the most interesting thing about the show was how different aspects of the show were tailored for the kind of youth.
The Afrocentrism in the production design, hairstyling and costume – that was a school uniform with a fabric print on it, something we love seeing.
It is hard to judge what the rest of the episodes of Prefects will unpack but at the look of things, we can finally say East Africa, ok Kenya and Uganda have been united and we are saying it in a positive perspective.
