TV & Radio Saturday October 8

Princess Chelsea is live at Roundhead Studios, and it's quarter-finals weekend at the RWC.

TV

Princess Chelsea, photo Janna Dixon/HoS

New Zealand on a Plate – Off the Beaten Track (TV1, 5.25pm). New Zealanders are obsessed – obsessed! – with food, it seems. Another “culinary journey”, this time shepherded by MasterChef winner Brett McGregor. In the first episode he takes Australian chef Pete Evans to Christchurch, where they meet one of the city’s most famous butchers and then create a lovely lunch with chorizo and salami. The journey also includes a visit to Waipara vineyard, 40km north of Christchurch. But wait, there are more food shows: Donna Hay: Fast, Fresh, Simple (Prime, Tuesday, 7.30pm) features the Australian maven and her vast repertoire of short cuts and tricks; and Peta’s Culinary Adventures in France (Prime, Tuesday, 8.00pm) features Peta Mathias and her students in the South of France as they forage and cook in and around the medieval town of Uzès. That sounds perfectly awful.

Rugby (Maori, 5.00pm and Sky Sport 1, Sky 020, 5.45pm). Some people may be relieved to know we’re getting close to the pointy end of the Rugby World Cup – certainly, the action is now concentrated in the main centres. The quarter-finals take place in Wellington and Auckland this weekend, beginning with Ireland v Wales at the Cake Tin, then England v France at Eden Park at 8.15pm today. Maori TV screens both games live, TV1 has the second quarter-final live, with highlights of the first game afterwards, and TV3 also screens the second quarter-final live. Tomorrow, rinse and repeat for quarter-finals three and four, except with more excitement – the All Blacks play Argentina at Eden Park.

FILM

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Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (TV2, 7.30pm). No one had thought about pirates for years until this came along: a zombie-ridden ghost ship out of nowhere (well, out of Disneyland, actually). But trust Johnny Depp to turn a camp, half-cut hippie pirate into an international smash-hit phenomenon. He now plays all his characters this way: sometimes an eccentric chocolate factory owner, sometimes a mincing Mad Hatter … Depp is aided and abetted by Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, who gets the best line: “You like pain? Try wearing a corset,” as she thwacks some poor sod over the head. Gore Verbinski directs the best of the four … so far. (2003) 8 – Diana Balham

Lethal Weapon 2 (TV2, 10.30pm). Like the second killer shark of Jaws 2 (see Sunday), Mel Gibson’s bite is worse than his bark, but he did succeed in carrying a sequel that dodged and dived as quickly as the first one. This time, white South Africans are in the gun and Gibson’s character, Riggs, keeps comparing them to
the Nazis. Interesting, in hindsight. (1989) 7 – Diana Balham

RADIO

Princess Chelsea and O’Lovely Recorded Live at Roundhead Studios (95bFM, 11.00am and Friday, 2.00pm). First up this week it’s North Shore girl Princess Chelsea, aka ex-Brunettes member Chelsea Nikkel, who got her new name after repeatedly complaining about dirty clothes and not enough showers when touring with an earlier band, Teenwolf. Her very cute Monkey Eats Bananas track will sound familiar to those who have seen the “Auckland’s Big Little City” ad on TV. Then it’s O’Lovely, three indie-poppers originally from Christchurch who are in no way related to American porn star Olivia O’Lovely but belong to a musical – and totally non-pornographic – subset known as “shoegazers”. There will be live streaming and podcasts on 95bfm.com and video on this website after October 8. (The first part of this concert will be repeated on Radio New Zealand National, 4.10pm today and Friday, 8.06pm.) – Diana Balham

BBC Proms 2011 (Radio New Zealand Concert, 3.00pm). It’s the last week of the BBC 2011 Proms, kicking off (damn you, Rugby World Cup!) with a recital from the Royal Albert Hall by British organist David Goode, Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Jac van Steen. They’ll be playing works by Rachmaninov, Berkeley, Elgar and Kodály. Also today at 8.00pm, German violinist Christian Tetzlaff is the soloist, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Robertson, with a programme featuring works by Holst, Birtwistle and Bridge. – Diana Balham