Gone are the days when film buffs in Ghana plan their daily routines based on the time their favorite movies will be showing on TV. The emergence of telenovelas and the subsequent flooding of screens with them has made it difficult for local filmmakers to compete.
Despite these difficulties, passionate filmmakers like Peter Sedufia are still committed to keeping the film industry alive. Keteke, Sidechic gang, Aloe vera, just to mention a few are some of the films made by Peter Sedufia.
Tanko Villa is a TV series created and directed by Peter Sedufia. Just like some TV series in the past like, Fresh Trouble, things we do for love, etc, Tanko Villa is packed with a lot of comedy that can glue you to your seat for a good number of hours. If you are into dramedy, you will be satisfied spending those good hours to watch Tanko Villa.
Tanko Villa is set on the premise of landlords and tenants issues in Accra. The ‘professors’, the ‘obumpas’, and the ‘sugars’, are tenants in Tanko Villa owned by the ‘tankos’. The tenants live in Tanko Villa under the “simple” yet hard-to-get rules set by Mr. and Mrs. Tanko. The plot of the series is driven by the hard-to-get rules by the ‘Tankos’, and the shared living arrangements as well as the personal decisions of the tenants.
The ensemble of actors paraded for this movie will instantly wet your appetite especially if they are your favorite stars. Papa Tanko (Ricky Kofi Adelayitor) is a familiar face in the movie industry. He has a special way of leaving a mark in any movie he is featured. Mama Tanko (Roselyn Ngissah) and Auntie Connie (Nikki Samonas) as usual are always a delight to watch. Prof. (Prince Amoabeng) is a show stopper if it comes to comedy. He made his mark in the ‘Kejetia vs Makola’ comedy series.
The fantastic performances by the actors coupled with the good cinematography makes the series a delight to watch. One character introduction that brings life to the series is that of sugar daddy OB (Mikki Osei-BerKo). I refer to him as the icing on the cake in this series. Mikki has created the “rich man” brand for himself and every director will certainly place him in such roles.
Though the actors put up their best performances, the script is lacking in character development and growth. The character of Nikki Samonas is supposed to be someone who struggles with the English language. However, in one scene she is seen struggling to pronounce certain words, and in another scene she is very accurate with her pronunciations and grammatical construction of sentences. This makes her character somewhat discombobulating. The blocking for most of the episodes can best be described as a sitcom or a stage play performance.
Frankly speaking, characters like, Mr. Obumpa, and Baby T are yet to be explored. Their characters seem to be loaded with a lot of nice subplots, but yet to be explored. The secret love birds, Kumi (Derrick Kobina Bonney) and Fafa (Jessica Williams), have had a good number of scenes to really explore their characters. But the story seems to have let them down. Kumi is not having a driving force and Fafa is excessively serious in the delivery of some of her lines that demands a little calmness.
Tanko Villa is definitely a TV series that promises to produce more comedy and drama in subsequent episodes. The episode 13 actually tackled the thematic ideas behind the series setting the stage for more to come.
Tanko Villa is currently streaming on Showmax.
