From the page to the screen: the alchemy of adaptation

Lawrence Maleka has for the past few years dominated screens as a charismatic media personality; now he is making an acting comeback almost three years since his last role on Netflix.

He stars in Mzansi Magic’s latest 13-episode drama series Critical But, Stable, based on Angela Makholwa’s bestselling book.

It is the latest in a long line of books that are being adapted for the small screen following the boom in streaming services.

Maleka plays Mzi, a husband and father who needs money for his son’s university fees and suffers from sexual dysfunction.

Makholwa is the co-executive producer of the series, giving her a seat in the creative process of adapting the book into a series.

“I have to warn the readers of Critical But, Stable that the world of television is so crazy that the storyline has shifted in the sense that in the book, the females are the protagonists, so the biggest shock for viewers is that it might not be the case on the show,” Makholwa told the Sunday Times.

Production began two years after she sold the rights to her 2020 book. She and the team realised there was a similar show playing on the platform and had to restructure the characters.

“Being in the room, I could be part of keeping the integrity of the spine of the book.”

Makholwa’s first adaptation was of her book Red Ink, which was made into an eight-episode series in 2000. Another of her books, The 30th Candle, was turned into the Netflix film Love, Sex and 30 Candles in 2023.

“As the creator, it was the character development that I just felt was not doing justice to the story that I was trying to tell. I just felt the characters were one-dimensional. They did the best that they could.

“Storytelling is difficult, and it needs to be very engaging with audiences that are very discerning nowadays. It’s frightening how much gets left out. Most of it is the internal world of the character.”

Most recently, author Sue Nyathi’s acclaimed 2012 novel The Polygamist was adapted into a 22-episode Netflix series.

Other popular adaptations include the 2010 novel Happiness is a Four-Letter Word by Nozizwe Jele, which was turned into a feature film in 2016; and Hlomu the Wife by Dudu Busani-Dube, whch was published in 2015 and adapted for the screen as The Wife. It premiered in November 2021 and was, like the book, a hit.

“It’s a surreal experience. It does not feel real at that moment when you’re watching the show for the first time. You don’t expect your work to ever live anywhere else than in the book,” Jele told the Sunday Times.

“I was fortunate enough to be involved in the development of the work. I knew what the vision of the producers was, what they were going to adapt and what they were going to leave in the book, the big themes they wanted to bring across, which I think is a very fortunate position to be in, because most writers are not involved in that process at all. Once your work is sold ... you really don’t have a say, and the next time you engage your work is when there’s a viewing.”

While the success of the film might be a great pat on the back, the translation of a novel into a television series can be deeply jarring for the original creators given how much of the work ends up on the cutting room floor post-production.

Novelist Deon Meyer — who has had his work adapted on many occasions and is famously known for Netflix’s Heart of the Hunter — shared the same sentiments.

“The first few minutes of the screen can be a little disconcerting if I attend the shoot of the production, seeing them becoming the characters; that first phase of adjustment is always strange.

“Every adaptation is different. Writing a book with a thousand characters doesn’t cost you a cent, but if you were to do that in a movie, then it would cost you a lot of money. You have to adapt.

“It’s impossible to shoot a movie as it is in the book. When I started being published, it was a miracle. All I thought about was hoping that I would be published. Even now, when I write, I never do it thinking it might make it to the screen.”

Screenwriter and author Karen Jeynes, who adapts books for the screen, said: “They are very different mediums. A book is a self-contained experience where you focus on a lead character and their arc. In a TV series you need to fill in the world some more.”

She is known for adapting two seasons of Recipes for Love and Murder.

“In recent years, we’ve seen more adaptations and I think there are a couple reasons for that. It gives people a sense of trust in the subject matter if they know these books are already popular, have resonated with the audience, or if the author is popular in the market that they want to be in,” she told the Sunday Times.

“We’ve seen a trend even with film where we see franchises and sequels; there are fewer standalone concepts, original concepts. Wherever a broadcaster or streamer can get that extra relatability factor, there’s an inbuilt audience already.”