Telling It Like It Is

Pierre van Pletzen, Oubaas in 7de Laan, says he won’t sugarcoat why he’s leaving the soapie.

- Jaco-hough Coetzee & Shanaaz Prince

OUBAAS leaving 7de Laan? Ag, nee! That sounds like a problem of epidemic proportions, as the beloved character would say in his own inimitable way.

The recent news that the SABC2 soapie wouldn’t be renewing its contract with Pierre van Pletzen, who plays Septimus van Zyl aka Oubaas, had many a staunch 7de Laan fan choking on their morning coffee.

This iconic character has been there since the beginning in 2000 and has appeared in more than 4 000 episodes.

But today the 65-year-old is as far from the laidback character he plays as it gets. In fact, he’s furious – and scathing about the soapie’s production team. They’ve been steadily working him out of the show for the past three years, he claims.

The reason? He firmly believes they want to get rid of him because he “wouldn’t keep quiet about the production company’s decline and the new management’s incompetence and lack of artistic knowledge”.

Line-producer Frances Maposa wouldn’t be drawn on Pierre’s views. “That’s his opinion,” she says, “and we’re not going to comment on it.”

“The age of 65 isn’t a time to be keeping your mouth shut,” Pierre says, his anger evident. Then he quotes Martin Luther King Jnr: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”