Making Soapies in Kabul

by Trudi-Ann Tierney

On an impulse, Trudi-Ann Tierney, Sydney producer and former actress, goes to Kabul to manage a bar. She quickly falls into the local TV industry, where she becomes responsible for producing a highly popular soapie.

Trudi's staff are hugely inexperienced. They include Habib, the Pashto poet who wants to insert allegorical scenes involving fighting ants into the scripts; Rashid, the Dari manager, who spends all day surreptitiously watching uncensored Hindi music videos; and the Pakistani actresses who cross the border to Jalalabad ('Jallywood') to perform roles that no Afghan actresses can take on without bringing shame to their families.

Trudi lives among the expat community - the media, the burnt-out army types now working as security contractors, the 'Do-Gooders', the diplomats - in dubious guest houses like The Dirty Diana. This is 'Ka-bubble', where the reckless encounters with each other, with alcohol and of course with recreational drugs are as dangerous as the city's streets.

Here are crazy people living crazy lives, and locals trying to survive as best they can against the backdrop of war.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

304 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2014

Reviews

[Shelleyrae at Book'd Out · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intrigued by her friend's appointment as the head of production for Afghanistan's largest and most successful television broadcaster, Sydney based producer and actress Trudi-Ann Tierney promised to join him if the opportunity ever arose. Barely six months later, in early 2009, Trudi-Ann found herself navigating the heavily armed guards at the airport and IDE strewn roads to Kabul for a four week stint managing 'The Den', a bar catering to 'Knuckle Draggers' (western private security contractors) in the hope that once in-country she could pick up some work with the Moby Media Group.

Making Soapies in Kabul is Trudi-Ann Tierney's fascinating account of her three and a half years in Afghanistan producing local television. Working long hours with few resources, inexperienced staff and hampered by language and cultural barriers she nevertheless produced the country's most popular television soapies, Salam and Secrets of This House as well as a police drama, Eagle Four.

Established in 2003 after the fall of the Taliban, Moby Media's programming was a mix of self-devised television funded by advertising and 'projects' financed by interested parties. Nominated the head of drama Trudi-Ann was also required to facilitate PSYOPS, 'Psychological Operations' which targeted Afghani viewers with messages designed to influence behaviour and attitudes, ranging from promoting trust in police to informing on the Taliban.

Filming largely on location, Trudi-Ann shares the trials of producing television as a foreigner in an Islamic war-zone, smuggling actresses in from Pakistan, negotiating with the military and local law enforcement, and bribing the cast to last the day of filming. Often twice the age of her young staff, Trudi-Ann's goal is to teach them all she knows so that they can carry on when the time comes for her to leave.

Despite being trailed by personal security guards 24/7 and the backdrop of military activity, gunfire and explosions Trudi-Ann rarely thinks of the risks she takes by living in a war-zone aside from devising a hiding place and escape strategy from the various compounds in which she lives. Yet the intensity of the setting fosters a sense of recklessness that expresses itself in drug-taking, excessive drinking and promiscuity.

Written in a conversational tone with honesty, humour and heart, Making Soapies in Kabul is a compelling read offering personal insight into Afghanistan and its people, the thriving ex-pat community and Trudi-Ann's experiences producing television drama in the midst of real conflict.

[Okimura1170 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Making Soapies in Kabul by Trudi-Ann Tierney
I started and finished this book in 3 days …..an unexpected find whilst browsing other books on Australia’s ADF involvement in Afghanistan.
This is a funny, hilarious, engagingly written account by Trudi, an experienced Australian TV actress and producer who on a whim accepts a job at the leading TV channel in Afghanistan in April 2009. Bear in mind that during the reign of the Taliban – there were no television allowed in the country. So the TV “industry” only started in 2002 at the earliest after the UN led eviction of the Taliban from the country.
Trudi recounts her 3.5 years in the wild west of TV show making – soapies, cop dramas, propaganda/informational series. Having had two similar experiences in my life (but in a different industry), Trudi’s story resonated with me as she conveys the buzz and excitement of creating an industry, improving production standards by teaching/mentoring local staff, and constant improvising / left field solutions to the constant need to make things up as one goes along that is inherent in a nascent industry.
There are 29 chapters of between 4-9 pages each, mostly telling a hilarious incident, sometimes sad and sometimes both. It is a credit to the author that the stories are always engaging, and I am sure that many more incidents have been left on the cutting room floor.
This book can be read at the level of a girl’s own adventure type book which it fulfils admirably. However, if one looks deeply, some of the hardships of living in one of the most underdeveloped & dangers countries in the world comes through. Instances like having a personal bodyguard(s) whenever one leaves her accommodation, hearing bombs and gunfire including being in lockdown, unable to travel to location shoots, a bus breaking down and having to spend a night in a Taliban controlled town, discovering after an outdoor shoot that the location had not been properly demined. References to expat colleagues having to depart Afghanistan after some months being deranged at the end due to the stresses of the job and living conditions.
And then the victories and triumphs, the winning of an international Jury Prize for one of the drama series the cop show Eagle 4, the growing skill and confidence of her team as the months roll on, and friends who actually found love in the country.
This is a 5 star read – funny, engaging, recounting another side to Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan, a real page turner with some really hopeful and touching stories.
If you want more, Trudi did some interviews with Deborah Hutton linked here https://balancebydeborahhutton.com.au...

[Melanie Sandford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I read it while in Myanmar working on a soapie, it resonated. The adventures Trudie and her team went through are pretty amazing and she writes about her personal experiences clearly and with a good sense of fun. I take my hat of to her.

[Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A genuinely fascinating but unpretentious telling of slice of time in Afghanistan. Definitely reads with some sadness knowing what has happened in recent years.

[Maisie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I finished this book at a bar I’d order a coca cola

[Hopscotch Friday · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review by Eliza Murphy for Hopscotch Friday: Life in a war zone is dangerous, reckless and unpredictable. Making soapies in a war zone is no exception, as Australian producer and former actress, Trudi-Ann Tierney discovered. On a whim, Trudi left Australia for Kabul, Afghanistan in April 2009, initially to manage a friend's bar, but she soon found herself working in Afghanistan's fledgling television industry. Making Soapies in Kabul details her experiences as a successful television producer and writer in a country where television had been banned for ten years under the Taliban. With a small and inexperienced cast and crew, Trudi sets out to make the Afghan's answer to 24, EastEnders and The Office. However, she comes across more than a few barriers along the way. In Afghanistan, there is no problem showing violent programs like Die Hard on television in the morning, but a script that contains a married couple hugging in their own home is difficult to get passed the censors. Frightened local children unfamiliar with television and too familiar with real violence fail to understand the difference between an actual terrorist attack and a fake one being filmed in an Afghani street; and while extras are easy to recruit, they often lose interest and wander off after the free lunch. Though her work is supposedly about providing entertainment, Trudi was surprised to find that television also played a role in the modern war machine in Afghanistan. Some of the programs funded by external clients form part of Psychological Operations or PSYOPS – propaganda aimed at influencing the values and behaviour of the audience, such as those with anti-drugs or women's rights messages. In Afghanistan, the PSYOPS media industry is big business, with 47 TV channels and 150 radio stations springing up across the country since the Taliban was forced out. Through her job and living in a guest house with other expats, Trudi came across some interesting characters: burnt out ex-soldiers working as security contractors (nicknamed knuckle-draggers), do-gooder humanitarians and diplomats, as well the locals who are fascinated by a middle-aged Western woman who hasn't married because 'she doesn't have to'. The stories she tells in her book highlight, unsurprisingly, that women's rights and tensions between various ethnic groups remain major issues in Afghanistan, so too the terror of regular violent attacks from the Taliban. Despite this, many of her stories are tinged with humour – such as when an American bar manager ended up being forced out of the country due to being framed as a 'godless' Westerner on the Afghani version of Today Tonight. Making Soapies in Kabul is a thoughtful tribute to the country and people of Afghanistan – an entertaining and thought provoking book that makes you want to throw away your 9 to 5 job and chase the adventure of life working in an exotic, dangerous place – at least for a little while.

[Jacqui Lademann · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining insight into the burgeoning television industry of the new Afghanistan.

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[Julie Steele]

Have not finished had to take back to library so will re borrow it up to page 148 not as good as i thought but interesting read

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very entertaining read. The only thing I disliked was the author's constant referring to women as 'chicks'

[Amanda Johnston · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first I thought "yawn, another Afghan memoir", but I ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would. Cheers