New Zealand Listener – August 10, 2019

AUGUST 10 2019 LISTENER 101

SATURDAY AUGUST 10

Ye l l ows t o n e (BBC Earth, Sky

074, 7.30pm). There are still

good things in the divided

United States, and Yellow-

stone Park is one of them.

This BBC documentary fol-

lows the park over the course

of a year, starting with winter

and the bison, foxes, elks and

wolves that survive through-

out six frozen months.

SUNDAY AUGUST 11

Still Open All Hours (Jones!, Sky

008, 7.30pm). Like a trip down

memory lane, or perhaps

a nightmare. With season

five, which begins tonight,

Still Open All Hours surpasses

the original 1970s series in

number. It is still written by

Roy Clarke (who also created

Last of the Summer Wine and

Keeping Up Appearances), who

maintains what you might

call a consistency with his

comedy situa-

tions: Granville

(David Jason) is the

new Arkwright, and his

son, Leroy (James Baxter), is

the new Granville, although

enjoying better luck with

women. Still, nearly five

million Brits seem to enjoy

the nostalgia, and the series

has been renewed for a sixth

season. If you’d like to see a

much younger Jason, Jones!

follows Still Open All Hours

with Only Fools and Horses at

8.05pm.

Funny As: The Story of New Zea-

land Comedy (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm).

The subject is music and

comedy and the episode fea-

tures a rare interview with our

most famous musical-comedy

export, and New Zealand’s

fourth-most-popular folk duo,

Flight of the

Conchords.

Of course, the

Topp Twins were

there before FoC and

they had quite an influence

on the songstresses of Funny

Girls.

Endeavour (Prime, 8.30pm).

There are no great leaps of

time in Endeavour and no

flashy five-year fast-forwards.

It seems creator Russell Lewis

is happy to stay in the 1960s

ment

to be about the trauma, we

wanted it to be about people.”

Nokise, who spends his time

between the UK, Australia and

New Zealand, grew up in the

congregation of Wellington’s

Pacific Islanders Presbyterian

Church, which made him the

perfect host for the series.

“Many people know that

in the Pacific community, the

church is a gathering place

for the entire community. We

get that across in the series: a

lot of people get into religion

because they’re seeking some

spiritual uplifting, but quite

a few people are in religion

because it’s part of the com-

munity. The spiritual and the

cultural are interwoven.”

Nokise says Anthony also

wanted him as host because

comedians can “make heavy

things light”. In May, Nokise

won the NZ International

Comedy Festival Fred Award

for a show addressing serious

issues.

“Religion can be quite a

heavy topic,” he says, “but if

I’m just dressed in the same

outfit walking around talking

to people, that would be a nice

way to show viewers that it’s

not intimidating and it’s not as

scary as you might think.

“The joy for me was just

learning and finding those

common links. Everyone

has their own way of finding

stillness and the place that

they go. Everyone’s got their

rhythm and those rhythms

aren’t that different.

“I’m also happy to say my

favourite part of each epi-

sode was ending up in the

kitchen.” l

Still Open All Hours, Sunday.

The Best of the Week

Television

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Yellowstone, Saturday.