Into the Desert

Reyka creator Rohan Dickson talks about finding a home for his new show Desert Rose.

- GENEVIEVE TERBLANCH

Desert Rose

Season 1 Thursdays (from 2 June)

M-Net (*101) 20:30

M-Net's (*101) new local drama series Desert Rose is a tale of innocence and experience, set in a forgotten Northern Cape town. The story centres on the Greyling siblings and what they have to do to survive in the middle of nowhere after their musician father Freddie (Neil Sandilands, exBart on soapie 7de Laan, see p30, and now General Abbot in Netflix sci-fi series Sweet Tooth) vanishes into the desert, leaving their home mired in debt and the family beholden to a dangerous and greedy man.

The desert setting was essential for the themes that series creator Rohan Dickson (the writer behind crime drama series Reyka) wanted to explore. "It is a familial story. It is a familiar story. But the idea of characters that feel that they have been exiled resonates deeply for me. The Greylings are the forgotten people who're left to live on the fringes in a country that has left them behind. And that's not to feel sorry for them. It's now (about) how do you survive. Is there love? Is there redemption? Is there humour? Is there humanity that can be found in those little cracks or do you just waste away in the desert?" But before he could write, Rohan had to take his own walk into the wilderness...