From snake hearts to inner space travel, we catch up with the boys of ‘Top Billing’

As part of its slow return to the small screen, Top Billing has called on some of its old and new faces to bring back “the gold standard” of travel and food entertainment. Partnering with brands such as Corona, the new offering kicked off on Thursday with some beloved faces reuniting to celebrate the show’s return and South Africa’s jaw-dropping beaches.

We caught up with some of the beloved male faces of the show to see what their most memorable moments on and off camera were.

What’s your favourite meal of all time on Top Billing?

Jonathan Boynton-Lee: We had this mopane worm stew, and there were hundreds of these worms in there, and it was strangely nice. It wasn’t too bad.

Michael Mol: The one dish that nearly ended my career on TV was in Vietnam at a snake restaurant. The proprietor of the restaurant saw the camera and brought out his prized cobra. He started playing with it, and while we were getting amazing shots and footage, all of a sudden he stepped on the tail of the snake and gutted it. He cut the heart out into a glass full of blood and bile, and he gave it to me as a guest of honour.

In the moment, it’s a culturally appropriate thing that happens all the time. As South Africans, we’re grossed out, but in Vietnam, the right thing to do is to accept it and down the snake’s heart while it’s still beating.

Janez Vermeiren: There’s a dish I had in Chile, a quinoa dish that Jeannie D and I still speak about today. It was made by a South American cowboy lady who cooked it in the kitchen of the place where we were staying, and it’s still one of the greatest dishes we’ve ever had.

Fezile Makhanya: It was a snoek in Paternoster. It was made by an oom who could barely speak English. He was quiet and barely spoke at all, but I could tell he was good at what he did. Very few ingredients, but he caught it that morning and made it that evening. It was amazing.

Where was your most memorable trip?

JBL: I always feel the local stuff is special, and we did a trip to Drakensberg, which is my other home, and it was special to have my Top Billing family experience the place that defined me.

MM: There have been many, and I know this is a standard answer, but going to the edge of space in a Russian MiG. Launched out of Moscow at a military base at 200 times the speed of sound, until we got to the edge where you can see the blackness of space and the curve of the earth.

JV: I’ve done some incredible trips, but the one that stands out is the first international trip I did. It was quite daunting and a big responsibility, and I knew then that Patience, who was a producer at the time, saw some potential in me because she only sent presenters who knew what they were doing. I was chosen with Jeannie, and it was so much fun that it resulted in the spinoff, Top Travel.

FM: Going across from Zim to Namibia so I could see how Africa looks. I’ve gone overseas and seen Europe, but falling in love with our country is important. When it comes to the world, we haven’t shown how incredible it is to come from Africa.

Any fashion or grooming tip you got while on the show that still sticks with you to this day?

JBL: For my first audition for Top Billing, Ursula (Chikane) was still a judge of the presenter search. I went in really baggy clothes and torn jeans. She said, “Listen, I’m going to put you through to the next round, but go buy yourself a button-up shirt.” That was probably the best advice I got from anyone, so from that point on, I began to dress decently.

MM: It’s more than just beauty. It’s about a lifestyle. Make sure you get enough sleep. Make sure you get some exercise, lift some heavy things and sweat a little bit. And just ditch the sugar. If you can do that, beauty will follow you.

JV: I learnt that when you travel with Top Billing, it’s multiples; you have to have multiples of the same outfits. So my technique was to have either white or black T-shirts I could swap out and shoot over days so that it could look like one insert.

FM: It starts from the inside. As a doctor, I always say once you do nutrition right and once you understand that the external reacts to what’s happening internally. So drink your water, get your sleep and make sure your mental health is right. From there, always cleanse, and I say this because I have an anaesthetist who always says I should always try these things and try to stay on top of them. Make sure that you are cleansing; make sure that at night you keep moisturised. In the morning, I have a vitamin C that I always take before I go and shoot, and then at night I have a niacinamide. Fancy words for a Zulu boy, but they’ve helped me stay focused on my skin when it comes to shoots and heavy schedules.