Wednesday 28 August 2013

Are you Delay’s new ‘Afia Schwarzenegger’?




Samuel Nii Odoi Mensah, President of the Ghana Actors Guild (GAG), has started an open and rather nasty fight with Delores ‘Delay’ Frimpong Manso over her upcoming auditions to find an actress to play lead role in the phase three of her ‘Afia Schwarzenegger’ television series.

After some two weeks of radio and television adverts in search of an actress to play the lead role, Nii Odoi Mensah last Thursday said on Peace FM that Delay has no right to hold auditions to search for an actress to play the role because she is neither a member of the Ghana Actors Guild nor the Film Producers Association of Ghana (FIPAG).

He accused Delay of fraudulently charging for her audition forms and said she was only exploiting the public.
 
In what appeared to be a rather sexiest statement, the GAG president noted: “This time, she will not get it easy. If she thinks she knows big men and so she can find her way through, we would also tell her that we are the Ghana Actors Guild. We have been quiet for some time now because we want sleeping dogs to lie but this time if you want to touch us, we would touch you because it is becoming too much…You see, when people come to small limelight, then they want to use it against others. It is not right. It is not right at all.” Samuel Nii Odoi Mensah But Delay, sounding very confident, told NEWS-ONE she would go ahead with her auditions and dared Nii Odoi Mensah to go ahead with his threats.

“There is no law in Ghana that states I must be a member of the Ghana Actors Guild or FIPAG before I hold auditions to pick actresses for a TV series for which I write the script, direct the production, select the cast, pay for airtime, pay the cast and crew and even decide which TV station I air it on… “Mr. Odoi Mensah is an adult and should know that when he says I think I know big men so I can have my way through, it is an insult not only to me, but to the female members of his Actors Guild as well. Who said a woman must know big men before she becomes a success story? If that is his mentality, I wonder why he thinks I must belong to his group… “In any case, the Ghana Actors Guild is not a statutory body that gives license to actors or actresses.

He can ask his members not to come for my auditions but he cannot ban any Ghanaian from acting for my series and I wonder how to select a cast without holding auditions. So you see? Instead of keeping quiet and pretending he is focusing on the welfare of his members so we continue to respect him, he is embarrassing himself with a battle he cannot win; a battle that at the end of the day, would push us all to test the laws of Ghana on whether or not the Actors Guild is a statutory body established by a legislative instrument or a parliamentary act.
 
Any group of actresses can easily come together tomorrow morning to form another group. So let him secretly go for his interlocutory injunction to stop us. Then we take it from there and see what the law says about freedoms of association. I’m not a film producer to belong to FIPAG,” Delay explained. On the question of selling the audition forms, Delay said it was normal practice: “Don’t mind him. Truth is, some people are only envious of successful young people who are not under them and do not come begging them for anything. Ask all those who go for pageants and auditions if they do not pay for the forms.

I am renting the entire conference room of the Errata Hotel, providing food, renting audio visual equipment and paying the operating crew, paying cost of radio and television adverts, paying consultants and you say I should make the forms free because Odoi Mensah says so? Things of value don’t come cheap. I am not a fraud. He should go and fight those who have nothing to show yet hold auditions. I have a production to show and he should be congratulating and supporting me rather than hating and insulting on radio.”

She said the auditions for a new ‘Afia’ will be held on Saturday August 31, at the Erata Hotel, and whoever emerges the ideal candidate would take over from Nana Hemaa….


Paulina says: TV presenter/producer/entrepreneur Delores Frimpong Manso aka Delay is one of those big Accra girls you just have to admire –no? You have to admire her ability to bounce back after that Wanlov hullabaloo –no?  

Not the usual Ghana Rising material, she is noooo socialite, but I was searching for the latest images of TV persona Nana Aba, yes I know she is not the usual Ghana Rising subject either but I’ve been seeing some really lovely photos of her lately and stumbled upon Delay’s Facebook page, read the above piece concerning her looking for another, another, another ‘Afia Schwarzenegger’ and just had to share. Plus said piece talks about a tiff with Samuel Nii Odoi Mensah, President of the Ghana Actors Guild (GAG) who I find to be an elegant man –and goodness knows we need all the elegant people we can find in Ghana…and gives as an insight into the inner working of Ghana’s big boy club mentality.. You have to admire Delay for having the stomach for the poli-tricks that is Ghana TV.

I digress small….. but did I ever tell about a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend who went back home under another regime ---sorry under another government with more sika than I care to think about to start his own Television station and was asked to give that ‘government’ a ridiculous percentage of his business mafia styleeee??? Well he disappeared back to where he came from and that was that…
 
So I kind of know a little bit about what goes on behind the scenes of Ghana TV and it’s not for the fainthearted. But I agree somewhat with Delay and believe that a virtuous woman with sika and talent can pay for her own show/production/airtime with out some ‘big bellied satellite dish head big man’ behind you etc etc but the truth is you also need to be pretty connected in Ghana –and that’s when it get very ‘spiritual-underground-games’…and I think that’s what Samuel Nii Odoi Mensah, President of the Ghana Actors Guild (GAG) is talking about. The sad truth is no industry in Ghana that has a level playing field and if you a woman who wants to make it without the big boys –you need God, your own money and the ‘Blood of Jesus’….

Anyway, could you be the next ‘Afia Schwarzenegger’? No nor could I. But if you are the next ‘Afia Schwarzenegger’ make sure you are at Erata Hotel on the 31st August 2013. To keep up with all of Delay’s daily happenings visit her official Facebook page via: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Delay/126984400748343

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