Downhill Without Brakes is set in newly democratic South Africa, as the shine is wearing off Mandela’s ‘rainbow nation’. The country grapples with rampant AIDS, mass unemployment and huge racial inequalities. Social change impact’s the two main characters and their relationships, as each struggles to stay afloat in turbulent times. Ezekiel Mabuza, popular doorman at Durban City Hall, he has lost one son to AIDS, the other in township violence and his wife to cancer.

He firmly believes that he will lose his daughters next. Ben Gallagher, city museum director, is trying to hold on to a shaky marriage and keep the museum going in straightened circumstances, while training for the Comrades marathon and fending off a municipal workers strike. A visit by wealthy Swedish grant-givers is disrupted by a startling incident between Ezekiel and Ben, with drastic consequences.