Funeral directing no dead-end job
I’ve always thought that being a funeral director was a grave undertaking.
It’s certainly an undertaking, but far from grave. The Casketeers (TV One, tonight) is a curious but strangely enjoyable series about funeral directors Francis and Kaiora Tipene.
Now, I’m disturbed by the title as much as if you called it The Incinerators, but the laid-back, casual style of Francis and his team overcomes my misgivings.
I keep recalling a TV feature I presented on death about 40 years ago that spooked me for years after. In it, the undertaker told me the real story of Prime Minister Norman Kirk’s funeral, but only after the TV cameras were sent home.
Francis and Kaiora are casketeers north of Auckland who claim ‘‘our task ends when the body fits the grave or reaches the fire’’ but allow cameras to film a day in their lives. It’s not a deadend job.
Francis stresses over details and likes a clean parlour. ‘‘A messy chapel drives me crazy,’’ he says. He doesn’t want his premises to look like a cinema at the end of Star Wars. He also regards appearance as important, so works out with a personal trainer three times a week and is on ‘‘a diet with fried bread’’.
Francis gives Fiona, his assistant, a fat-burning pill to boost her energy. It’s too late for the bodies. In his conversation with the camera, I can imagine him saying ‘‘it’ll stop her coffin’’.
When the sister of the Ma¯ ori King dies, Francis is engaged to handle the funeral. ‘‘I want to make sure everything’s on point,’’ he says. ‘‘She must look amazing and positioned right.’’
But not on point is Francis. He even orders Scottie, his colleague, who can be a ‘‘pain in the ass’’ not to travel with the King because ‘‘he might ask for a selfie’’.
The episode is intriguing and engaging. It takes the mystique out of the profession and shows a dedicated team having fun and doing their best for their clients. If death can be demystified then Francis makes a good effort.
I’ll watch The Casketeers again, but keep wondering what it’s doing on primetime Saturday nights. I get the impression that TV programmers had it hanging around and wanted to get rid of it. I almost said it’s worth a repeat midweek until I realised what I was saying.
It’s good to have The Project (TV3, Monday to Friday) back. Jimmy Carr was a star attraction this week and, when guest interviewer, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, told him she was going to sit back and listen, he replied ‘‘you’re the opposite of Trump’’.
They engaged in banter about whether she’d get an invite to the Royal Wedding and he told her just to turn up. Jimmy, who thought interviewing was the PM’S second job, is here touring seven cities ‘‘in a country that only has five’’.
The Project is pleasant company during the week.
Paul Finchley is a national treasure, but a tarnished one when he’s accused of raping a 15-year-old girl. National Treasure (TV One, Tuesdays) picks up the story from the accusation through to the decision to prosecute him and the court case itself.
The series sets its own pace. It’s not a legal drama, but instead shows how the publicity tragically impacts the lives of Paul, his wife Marie and their drug-addicted daughter, Dee.
It’s a fine piece of theatre with assured acting from Robbie Coltrane and Dame Julie Walters.
However, on a hot night, two episodes with countless ad breaks are strung together and it’s a struggle to absorb everything. Paul deservedly falls from grace but, at the end of two hours, it was difficult to remember who Grace was and where she fitted in.
The Crowd Goes Wild (Prime, evenings) and hosts Andrew Mulligan and James Mconie often go wilder. Their commentary is unrehearsed, inane and juvenile. But it’s the images we come to watch, especially the one-day cricket highlights.
Quote of the day came from Mconie, who said Ben Stokes should be on the undercard to the Parker/joshua fight. How wrong can he be? Stokes instead will be here next month to play T20 matches. We’ll see what sort of fist he makes of them.