Green Guide's Critical View
The Age
Thursday March 17, 2011
FREE TO AIRWHITES: premiere seriesABC1, 9.30pmSet in the kitchen of a fine-dining country hotel, the show is far more subtle, low key and genial than the premise suggests. QI regular Alan Davies is Roland White, a once-coveted chef who bears an uncanny resemblance to Marco Pierre White and whose memoirs and private life are distracting him from running his kitchen. Gathered around him are his needy sous chef Bib (Darren Boyd), front-of-house manager and secret admirer Caroline (Katherine Parkinson) and new apprentice Skoose (Stephen Wight), a Jekyll-Hyde mix of deference and malice. A character-driven comedy that doesn't seem to be in a hurry, it doesn't rely on set-ups, pratfalls or punchlines but on the warmth of the characters.. PAUL KALINAPAY TVTHE IRISH IN AUSTRALIAHistory, 7.30pmIT'S a good enough idea comedian Fiona O'Loughlin presenting a documentary about the history of the Irish in Australia but it's a bit unsatisfying in the execution. It's more a series of postcards from the past than any sort of chronology or overview of Irish-Australian history. O'Loughlin flits back and forth across the continent visiting museum curators, academics and local historians, all of whom have stories to tell about different events and periods. Some of these are interesting and worthwhile. One is the segment in which Kevin Jones of the South Australian Maritime Museum talks about the hopes and fears of the Irish free settlers of the 1840s. BRAD NEWSOMEBEVERLY HILLS NINJA (1997)7Two, 7.30pmCHRIS Farley will be remembered as the last of the physically large comics, an oversized, rotund ball of energy. Increasingly Farley's screen persona in movies was of the blundering simpleton. Beverly Hills Ninja, his final release, tried to establish him as a martial arts Inspector Clouseau but there was no artistry to his buffoonery and, sadly, Farley was not possessed of a hint of subtlety.CRAIG MATHIESON
© 2011 The Age
