New Zealand Listener 03.14.2020

68 LISTENER MARCH 14 2020

THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT

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Sport by RUSSELL BROWN

The week’s best live action

The Plot Against

America, Tu e s d ay.

NETBALL

The 2020 ANZ Premiership gets under way this weekend

with 2019 champs the Central Pulse taking a stack of

pre-season form into the competition opener against the

Mainland Tactix in Blenheim (Sky Sport 3, Sunday, 4.00pm).

Straight after that it’s an Auckland derby with the North-

ern Stars at home to the Northern Mystics (Sky Sport 3,

6.00pm). On Monday, the Southern Steel host the Waikato

Bay of Plenty Magic (Sky Sport 3, 7.00pm).

cheese and chilli. Oozy risotto

and summer vegetable pie are

also on the menu. For more

British globetrotting chefs, Rick

Stein: From Venice to Istanbul

begins on Choice TV (Sunday,

4.30pm). It has screened before,

but the scenery’s lovely.

Rich House Poor House (TVNZ

1, 9.15pm). More British belt-

tightening. Well, sort of. A

wealthy family in the top

10% swap with one in the

bottom 10%; small life lessons

rather than larger cultural and

political insights are learnt.

“Nobody was overwhelmed

by hardship, or unsettled by

a glimpse of how the other

half lives,” said the Guardian.

Perhaps it’s a good thing that

the families don’t seem to be

a million miles apart despite

their income disparity – there’s

enough division in Britain

already.

The Plot Against America

(SoHo, Sky 010, 9.30pm).

Between this and Prime

Video’s Hunters, in which

Al Pacino hunts Nazis

in the 70s, we’re sensing

a theme. After The Wire

and The Deuce, David

Simon turns his attention to

a fictional America, one in

which aviator hero Charles

Lindbergh, also a noted

anti-Semite and xenophobe,

becomes president. Simon and

his writing partner Ed Burns

have adapted Philip Roth’s

2004 novel and tell the story

through the eyes of a working-

class Jewish family in Newark

as they watch Lindbergh

create a fascist state during

World War II. The trailer alone

is anxiety-inducing. Winona

Ryder, Zoe Kazan, Morgan

Spector and John Turturro are

in the cast and Roth was an

executive producer.

THURSDAY MARCH 19

Police Ten 7 (TVNZ 2, 7.30pm).

Police Ten 7 enters its 27th

season, which is an awful

lot of criminals doing crime.

Welcome back, we think.

SURFING

It’s hard to overstate what a big deal the inaugural World

Surf League Piha Pro is for New Zealand surfing. It’s five

years since any WSL event was staged here and the Piha

Pro is a special one. As a Challenger Series event, it offers

equal prize money to men and women. Local surf star

Paige Hareb told the New Zealand Surf Journal the event

will be “the first time I’ve competed in New Zealand

for equal points and prize money, which will be amaz-

ing – the future is now”. The women’s field is particularly

strong, with five of the top-10-ranked surfers competing

• including 2019 world champion Carissa Moore. In the
  men’s competition, all eyes will be on Kelly Slater, the
  greatest surfer in the sport’s history, surfing competitively
  in New Zealand for the first time since 1993. It will be, as
  our surfer friends say, sick. Coverage begins at 7.00am on
  Friday on Sky Sport 9.

RUGBY

After what seems

like a long time – if

not necessarily a

bad time – the Blues

are back at Eden

Park on Saturday

and will have high

hopes against

the struggling

Lions (Sky Sport 1,

4.00pm).

Paige Hareb

Otere Black

Rick Stein: From Venice to

Istanbul, Sunday.