Highlights of work experience: NICKY GREENWALL
For a touch of class.
Diploma in Art Direction (The Red and Yellow School of Advertising)
Date of birth: 11 March 1979
Credit ETV for pictures
Actress. Television Personality. Celebrity MC. Columnist. Artist
Nicky Greenwall is one of our most popular young celebrities. She personifies the modern woman – educated, entrepreneurial, independent, not afraid to speak her mind, sassy, talented and possessing a sparkling wit. She rolls with the punches and comes up fighting. She’s also beautiful, charming and winningly persuasive.
The Showbiz Report – ETV Thursdays at 19.30 and Sundays at 1 pm.
Nicky writes, produces and presents ETV’s popular Showbiz Report!
Nicky Greenwall is the dynamic package with which to add a touch of class to any function! Totally fabulous, passionate, funny, charming and with a creative streak that leaves people gasping, it’s no surprise that she is in such high demand.
Nicky as an MC:
With her background in advertising, she understands the corporate world and knows how to add the magic ingredient to her MC role at a product launch or corporate event. A rare blend of looks, talent, quick thinking and wit, Nicky interacts well with any audience. Because of her interviewing technique and experience, she’s a natural in front of a crowd and has the ability to put others at ease. It’s seldom that an MC can bring such a diversity of experience and talent to the job – and it shows!
Nicky as a personal motivation speaker:
At just 25, Nicky was one of the youngest editors in South Africa. This was just the beginning of her fast track media career. Nicky Greenwall can motivate and talk about overcoming disappointments and achieving personal success with disarming candour and charm and is an inspiration to young and old.
Television and Media Celebrity.
Nicky Greenwall has featured on the covers of glossy SA magazines. She was nominated by Elle for the TV Style Awards in 2003, won the most innovative style award in 2004, was voted one of South Africa’s most successful young people by Y magazine and proclaimed the IT girl by Seventeen magazine!
As ETV’s arts and entertainment editor, anchor and presenter of “Nightlife,” she took the show from a five minute slot to one of the highest rated primetime ‘live’ programmes with a huge following, in just two years. Her new programme, The Showbiz Report, is fast becoming the most popular news vehicle in the South African entertainment industry.
Nicky’s expertise:
She studied Art Direction at Ogilvy & Mather’s advertising school in Cape Town and worked for top advertising agencies in South Africa, turning out successful campaigns for clients like Financial Mail, Business Day, Musica, Sissy Boy and Edgars.
Her own opinions:
Other than festivals like the Grahamstown, the Hilton, Oudtshoorn etc, it seems as if live theatre is dying for lack of audience? Do you think there’s hope of reviving it, of getting South Africans to go to plays?
Generally, South Africans don’t have a theatre watching culture.
I think it can be fixed by mixing it up. The dinner theatre concept is a good one. The success of the Barnyard theatres is because that concept is more in line with our culture. Combining theatre with something else, like having dinner, works better for us. I think it’s because South Africa is not a thoroughfare like London, where it’s so much easier to go from place to place, theatre to restaurant to tube station. Here you have to make concerted plans. You have to drive to the theatre, find parking; then if you want to go for dinner, you have to fetch the car, drive somewhere else. It’s a schlep. We are lazy. We do love theatre when we go. That’s why Grahamstown and Hilton are so successful. Its easy to move from one play to another. You don’t have to schlep the car around, worry about being mugged and so on.
Do you hope to improve the lot of live theatre through your show?
I hope it will help - indirectly. It’s the biggest thing I struggle with. I want to give the story of the struggle of being an artist in SA. On the other hand, I have to keep my show real, I have to be very aware of what I am not. I am not a PR. I receive hundreds of mails about this or that event or show but I work for the audience. I work for the people who switch their televisions on and choose to watch The Showbiz Report. If the ratings go down, the show will die. I am not going to fall on my sword for the sake of trying to please.
Rather, I will give the audience what they want. Things like the top ten movies. The top ten music videos. I am aware, for instance, that there are currently four South African artists in the top ten music – that means that 40% of South Africans are listening to local music and 60% are listening to international. So I am not going to shove South African music down the throats of my audience just because that would be PC. I will do reports on our artists in the top ten or are winning awards - like Ladysmith Black Mambaza.
I am not a crit. I am a reporter on the entertainment industry. So if an SA band wins an award, sells albums, they will make it onto the show.
Are we on a par with the rest of the world when it comes to performance art?
Definitely. But we don’t package ourselves. And we don’t have enough opportunities to fail here, which stunts the growth of the industry. If you bomb one night, everybody knows about it. You bomb one night and the show’s shot.
We are not good at marketing or packaging ourselves. And you have to do it all yourself. There’s not much support.
Excerpt from interview with Ronnie Whitaker of Quirky House.
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