AS A SITCOM, “
Iskul Bukol” ran for more ten years from the late 70s to the 80s. Now, TV5 presents a re-imagining of the hit show about student life to be aired starting this Tuesday after “Mga Nagbabagang Bulaklak” at 10 PM. The role of the school bullies, the Escalera brothers played by Tito Sotto and Joey de Leon then, are now played by
Alwyn Uytingco and Sam YG as Chill and Easy Balidosa. The role of the bright but nerdy Vic Ungasis interpreted by
Vic Sotto then is now played by new discovery Fred Lo as Rude Valentino. All the other characters are new: the closet queen who’s the son of college dean, Wacky Roque (Keempee de Leon); the athletic chick who loves sweets, Shawie Cunanan (Erika Padilla); the ultra conservative provinciana, Barbie Que (Regine Angeles); the university’s prefect of discipline, Bongbong Bing (Joel Saracho); the janitor who’s a working student, Itor (Jerald Napoles); the cafeteria owner, Aling Aning (Tess Antonio) and her assistant Pet (Lao Rodriguez).
“This is not a remake of the original show,” stresses Joel Saracho who’s also one of the show’s four co-writers. “Some characters maybe patterned after the original but there’s really no connection other than Keempee being the son of Joey de Leon who’s in the first show. The story and the characters evolved after a series of meetings, then we auditioned various actors to cast the show. In the old show, they’re old time friends na when they did it, established na sina Tito, Vic and Joey. In our case, we met sa auditions lang then we all had workshops at ngayon pa lang kami nagbo-bonding ng buong cast.”
