Two Weeks in Lagos, Nigeria 02

Part II

(part 1 can be found here)

Things in Lagos appear to take time: Drivers often fetched us over 2 hours late and…..

The schedule was to spend 3 or 4 days rehearsing with backing vocalists and then move into the TV studio to start shooting the series. By the end of the week we were told that the set was still at customs and the studio a construction site. 

In the meantime we were supposed to have been given 3 cut-off points for each of the songs to be performed. Each cut represents a different level of difficulty in the game show. As with everything else, we were given these stops late (some only on the day of shooting).

OK at this point I’ll just list a bunch of things that were wrong about the time spent in Lagos (aside from those mentioned previously): Offices where we rehearsed sometimes had no running water (ie toilets didn’t work); our Per Diems ran out quickly as food turned out to be expensive; we were locked out of our hotel rooms one night for a few hours as the bill hadn’t been paid; we weren’t given a day off in two weeks (we eventually mutinied & refused to work); things often went wrong on set & the band had to entertain a restless audience while tech issues were being sorted out. I could carry on, but I’ll stop here. 

Apologies to all the wonderful people/friends that I made in Lagos: Ada, Roro, Noel, Nkem, Iyke and others for saying such negative things about your home city! Hopefully the next trip I’ll see a better side :-)

I’m supposed to return in April to shoot the rest of the series. The SA band members have requested certain changes (such as a clean hotel) for the second leg. Watch this space….

See all my photos of Lagos here: Lagos Photos

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