The first live televised judgment of a criminal case in South African history ended yesterday as one might expect any soap opera would — with a cliffhanger.

The script of the first day of judgment in the trial of Schabir Shaik went further than the lack of final judgment after a mere eight months of hearings — it wove in the characters, the set and the subplots.

In addition, Judge Hillary Squires cruelly capitalised on the techniques of the storyteller in his judgment, starting with what might just have been deadpan humour or perhaps inverted irony, or perhaps neither.

Looking out at the packed court with everyone dressed in their most business of business suits, he warned that what he was going to say would be long and boring for people who just wanted to know the result.

Those who just wanted to know the result were free to leave. No-one moved.

He then launched into what promises to be at least a two-day affair, with an extended explanation of the convoluted events that led up to the charges. It really was long and boring, at least for Shaik trial aficionados.

Squires' summarised rendition of eight years of political changes overlaid by wheeling and dealing was only once broken by an obvious joke.

He noted that prosecution advocate Billy Downer had begun his exposition by quoting the opening of Virgil's Aeneid: "I speak of arms and the man".

"The only resemblance to the 12 books was the epic proportions of the evidence," Squires said. The oral evidence was supplemented by a "small avalanche" of documents.

However, for all the apparent dullness, television is a funny thing. Sometimes it makes the dull seem dramatic. It brings out the best and the worst, the showmanship and the flash. And it also brings in the masses.

Outside the court yesterday, the masses were modestly evident, with a host of Shaik supporters cheering his entrance. He was supported in the court by a full bench of friends and family, notably all five brothers, his wife Zuleikha, two religious guides complete with turbans, and former journalist Ranjeni Munusamy, all looking splendid in dark suits, and by comparison, a rather modest legal team, who for once looked underdressed.

The supporting cast took up the entire first row of the accused box, which was long ago especially enlarged for the trial of former defence minister Magnus Malan.

Shaik has not once during the trial sat in this sectioned-off part of the courtroom, a fact that his psychiatrist, assuming he has one, would no doubt find significant.

Reading the judgment was clearly an effort for Squires, whose voice was giving out by the end of the day. Or maybe not.

Squires has conducted the trial with a kind of foxy judiciousness that defies easy guesswork as to what might be coming next. The result is that after two-and-a-half hours of judgment, no one outside the court was quite sure who was winning.

"It's like three-nil down for Liverpool at half time in the Champions League", said one commentator.

"Shaik can come back, but don't bet on it."

It did seem bad news for Shaik that Squires seemed to be focusing so explicitly on Deputy President Jacob Zuma's "interventions".

But then again, this may simply be a straw man who will be knocked down with equal venom in the latter part of the judgment.

If you want to know the outcome — assuming there is one — you'll just have to tune in to the next exciting episode, which takes place today, starting at 10am.

With acknowledgements to Tim Cohen, Nicola Jenvey and the Business Day.