Keketso Semoko

Keketso Semoko is a South African actress best known for her role as Ma Agnes Matabane in the SABC3 soapie Isidingo, since July 1998.

Recently diagnosed with diabetes, she has been working with global healthcare company Novo Nordisk as a Changing Diabetes Ambassador.

She is the youngest of nine children, with six brothers and two sisters. Her father died in an accident when she was 15 and her mother is a retired nurse.

Semoko matriculated from Lofentse Girls High School in Orlando East, Gauteng, then completed a BA Hons Degree in Dramatic Arts and Diploma in Cinematography at the University of the Witwatersrand.

She got her acting start in Maishe Maponya's stage production of the Lorraine Hansberry play A Raisin in the Sun.

Other theatre shows she has acted in include George Wolfe’s The Colored Museum; a workshop production entitled The Hottentot Venus in which she played the title role of the tragic Sartjie Baartman, the young Khoi girl who was exhibited throughout France as a freak; and Sezar, which played both South Africa’s Market Theatre and Britain’s Oxford Playhouse.

She has appeared in the television series Justice for All, Young Justice and the sitcom Going Up.

Films include the Canadian/South African co-production Dr Lucille Teasdale, the Leon Schuster movie Mr Bones (2001) and Gavin Hood’s A Reasonable Man (1999), Drum (2002) and Jason Xenopoulos’ An African Story.

She also played the role of Mooma Tuussee in the 2004 made-for-TV movie King Solomon's Mines, starring Patrick Swayze.

Keketso has been starring in the soapie Isidingo since July 1998, three months after the production premiered. She won the 2007 SAFTA award for best Actress in a TV Soap for her role as Ma Agnes Matabane.

Agnes is a gentle woman and very attractive but sometimes stubborn, she is kind and caring to those around her. She takes her responsibility seriously, is highly intelligent, ambitious and tenacious.

She is a well-respected member of the community with a strong moral character. In many ways she is still very traditional.

Agnes sees life as intrinsically difficult, but finds comfort in her strong faith. This stems from her childhood love for church, where she started singing in the choir.

As a child, life was physically hard – she had to walk great distances to fetch wood and water, daily. At age eight she lost her father, and the family suffered financially as a result.

Due to her family’s financial situation, her childhood education was limited to a few years of rural schooling. As an adult she attended night school, where she taught herself to read and write.

Agnes is a good friend. She struggles to embrace difference and mostly chooses friends who are like her. She has befriended the ladies in the choir and her sewing group, although sometimes, minor politics can cause some tension.

She is a long-suffering wife of a difficult man, Zeb.  The Rec is her primary business, along with the scaled-down mine kitchens. Her job at the council, plus her shares in Bokamosa provides her with a comfortable income. She has a secret savings account that Zeb doesn’t know about.

 In real life she has been diagnosed to have type 2 diabetes. When she found that 7 ago she cried for days.