Online Catch of the Week
NZ ON FILM: Much as we’d all have read The Luminaries (yes, right to the end), in a perfect country we’d all be able to readily discuss the landmarks and lesser lights of our thriving cinematic tradition at dinner parties. Well, film bluffers, help is at hand. On Sunday, TVNZ OnDemand launches a roster of notable New Zealand films for free streaming: Boy, The Dark Horse, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Tickled, The Orator, both Sione’s Wedding films and more. It’s quite the summer bounty. tvnz.co.nz/shows
POP WAIATA: The Waiata Anthems album, for which Hinewehi Mohi curated a selection of beloved local pop songs performed by the original artists in te reo Māori, was a highlight of this year’s Māori Language Week. But you might have missed one of the artists, Bic Runga, slipping in to RNZ to perform Haere Mai Rā, the te reo Māori version of her hit Sway. It’s magical. tinyurl.com/NZLHMR the state is still sending them there, and British journalist Trevor McDonald is making a return visit five years after his award-winning documentary Inside Death Row. Two of his former subjects feature, as well as new death-row inmates, including a serial killer and a man who murdered his wife and two children and wishes that his death sentence had not been commuted.
TUESDAY DECEMBER 3
Inside Oxford Street (TVNZ 1, 8.45pm). Shopping in Europe’s busiest retail street must be crowded enough without also tripping over camera crews. Nevertheless, here’s a whole series devoted to what goes on and around this famous consumer paradise, including following those who keep the underground and rail systems moving, the police, whose beat covers nearly 2km of shops, and some of the retail denizens who attract about 142 million shoppers every year. But wait, there’s more British observational time-wasting in Posh Hotels: Upstairs and Down (TVNZ 1, Friday, 7.30pm), in which Nigel Havers and Sally
Lindsay, formerly of Coronation Street, poke around fancy hotels. They both experience being guests and staff – Havers in a pinny polishing the woodwork is quite a treat – at these eye-wateringly expensive hotels such as the Langham in London, Bovey Castle in Dartmoor and Ballyfin in Ireland.
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 4
Shop Well for Less (TVNZ 1, 7.30pm). Enemies of capitalism Alex Jones and Steph McGovern return for a third season of persuading UK families that they’re spending too much. It’s brutal: in the first episode, an insistence on branded merchandise is crippling a family’s finances. The series is a variation on the popular Eat Well for Less, in that Jones and McGovern swap items for less expensive versions just to see if the family can tell the difference. It also acts as a consumer-testing show, with men’s shavers, car seats, polo shirts and baby strollers under scrutiny in this episode.
How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep (TVNZ 1, 8.45pm). UK breakfast TV watchers will be familiar with Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford, the married couple who have been presenting ITV’s This Morning since 2006. They’ve made a brace of TV shows together too, and, here, explore what Holmes describes as the UK’s “sleep deprivation epidemic”. This relates to their own lives, as Holmes is a poor sleeper – partly because Langsford snores. He explores his own sleep disorder (he gets just three or four hours a night) and Langsford consults snoring experts, including a fitness instructor who shows her and Jenny, who has been deemed Britain’s loudest snorer, exercises to strengthen mouth and throat muscles.