New Zealand Listener - May 26, 2018

MAY 26 2018 LISTENER 63

you for that, Foreign Secretary.

The drawcard of the docu-

mentary is a stroll around the

Buckingham Palace gardens

with Sir David and the Queen.

It’s like a wander around the

Botanics with your gran and

grandad, if your gran could

trace her family history back

hundreds of years to when

James I planted mulberry trees

in the hope of establishing

silkworms. Unfortunately, the

trees were the wrong variety.

As the Queen doesn’t

travel abroad any more, she

is sending her grandchildren

to do the dirty work – liter-

ally; spades are involved – in

countries that have signed up.

Prince Harry is an enthusiastic

emissary on a trip to the Carib-

bean. “It’s what my family

do,” he says. “Travel the world

planting trees.”

He’s not wrong. Her Majesty

has planted trees everywhere

as a sort-of royal “I was here”

quips Attenborough. William

and Kate are filmed in Canada

for the establishment of a

protected area of the Great

Bear Rainforest. “Our ancestors

are still here,” says the local

chief, a sentiment Kiwis will

understand. l

SATURDAY MAY 26

Phil Spencer’s Stately Homes

(Prime, 7.30pm). One might

think it would be the height

of poor taste to discuss such

sordid subjects as money

when looking at stately

homes, but Phil Spencer has

no such qualms in running

his estate agent’s eye over

some of the UK’s most lavish

piles. He wants to know how

these amazing edifices were

paid for, the size of the estate,

how many rooms (and prob-

ably how many loos) they

have and whether there’s

an indoor-outdoor flow.

Well, at least it’s a point of

difference from all the other

shows in which well-known

personalities visit manors and

mansions. Spencer begins

the six-part series at Burghley

House, the most impressive

Elizabethan country house in

the UK, built by Elizabeth I’s

Lord High Treas-

urer William Cecil

between 1558 and

1587. As well as oohing
      and aahing over some of the
      house’s 115 rooms, Spencer
      looks at “key expenses” and
      compares the “spend” at the
      time to today’s prices. How
      uncouth. Other country piles
      include Castle Howard in
      Yorkshire, the setting for the
      1981 television adaptation of
      Brideshead Revisited; Hope-
      toun House in the Scottish
      lowlands; and party estate

Goodwood

House, which

is home to a

motorsport track,

a racecourse, an airfield,

a cricket pitch and a golf

course. It’s not the only dose

of Spencer this week: he’s

back in his natural environ-

ment in a new season of

Kirstie and Phil’s Love It or List It

(TVNZ 1, Wednesday, 7.30pm).

MONDAY MAY 28

Tākaro Tribe (TVNZ 2, 6.40am).

Cute kids’ series Tākaro Tribe

ment

Phil Spencer’s Stately

Homes, Sunday.

The Best of the Week

Television by FIONA RAE

Good for a

Laugh!

MISADVENTURES

TVNZ OnDemand,

Friday

Tākaro Tribe, Monday.