Playing with food is not something I usually encourage – but having seen the synopsis for the new game show on Net TV, I am on the verge of changing my mind.
Purée is a new daily game-show created by Watermelon Media for Net Television, which has apparently decided to pull up its socks and look to its laurels, after sitting on them for the past two years at least.
Rumour has it that the administration of this station has been contacting the crème de la crème of production companies in Malta, with a view to striking deals with them. The station, apparently, is going to give its all and then some to the forthcoming winter schedule. I cannot help but make the connection between how most of the finances had of late been directed towards the Dar Ċentrali project.
But I digress. The notion behind Purée is combining food, comedy and games within one show... and with this onomatopoeic name, the producers neatly avoided the hackneyed ‘potpourri’ trap. Hosting this show will be the charismatic Ronald Biffa; but this does not mean that he will be wearing the moccasins of a quizmaster.
The first set of 240 participants – all ‘faces’ – have been handed menus and asked to make their selections. This means that 240 meals will be prepared to order by Neil Darmanin (a participant of L-Ispjun, and a chef by profession). For the participants, it’s not merely a question of singing for their supper (although they will sit down to their chosen meal at the end of the show, too) – they may also win money. However, it will not end happily ever after for the contestant who places last.
• ‘Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe’ are the opening words of Canto VII of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno. The ambiguity of the verse is partly what has made it famous. As with the prophecies of Nostradamus, there have been countless attempts to interpret them. Some commentators have even gone as far as to label it a summons to Satan.
Julia Farrugia will be taking up the gauntlet in her new 26-part series Papé, which has been assiduously researched by Ġorġ Peresso and will be broadcast on One Television. This is a Horizons production.
The twice-weekly programme, going out on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 10.30 p.m., will be looking at the way Satan and his cohorts have been presented over the years in the arts as well as other fields such as mental health therapies.
Inevitably, there will be a chapter devoted to the Inquisition, and whether or not all cases of alleged possession ‘by the devil’ are real. For, after all, getting rid of a rival in love or matters financial is relatively easy if you can get him committed to a mental hospital, or classified as a sorcerer, a witch, or possessed by a malign being.
There will also be coverage of how evil spirits are portrayed in different religions; and, as a (questionable!) bonus, a ‘photo gallery’.
• A lot of ink was used recently to point out the ‘bad language’ of sports commentators, who had, literally and figuratively, a field day during the World Cup.
Valentino Rossi inadvertently helped them by fracturing a leg during practice in Mughello; and so it began again; ‘kiser waħda minn saqajħ’ (as if in Maltese there is no singular form); ‘kisser riġlu’ (someone must have missed the lesson about verbs) and ‘kellu’ accident ‘ikraħ’ being but three of the ways this was described.
Apparently, there is no way that radio or television stations can correct the scripts of adverts – so we are still being told to purchase ‘sidra tat-tiġieġ’ at an unbeatable price.
Daniel and Kathleen of Ċama Ċama recently made a similar mistake – and in their case, it could be considered much worse, since the programme is aimed at children who would perhaps otherwise not have access to the wonderful information they offer.
The vernacular has two words to describe ‘fish scales’ – ‘skwami’ and ‘ruski’. Buhagiar and Mamo appeared not to know this, for they repeated the word ‘scales’ at least 10 times in less than as many minutes.
• I never got to the end of Men Are from Mars, Women are from Venus, because I found it boring.
Unless something is done to jazz up the format of Sessi (E22), it risks going the same way.
Natasha Turner does her best to lead her young audience into a coherent discussion about the topics under scrutiny. Some of the youth present, occasionally, do offer insightful comments; but most of them falter and echo what the speaker preceding them would have said, albeit in different words.
The set of the programme has, as in countless others, a teacher-student format in which Turner seats herself higher than her studio audience-participants. For some reason, the sessi of the title are not integrated – there is a wavy, dividing line between the boys and the girls, all of whom come from different associations, voluntary groups or clubs that cater for tomorrow’s adults. This could be because of the constant emphasis on ‘stereotypes’ and ‘feeling different’.
The highlights of the programme are the clips written and produced by two members of Carlos Farrugia’s Free Spirit Acting School; Kri Abela and Duncan Azzopardi.
• Speaking of acting clips – why is it that most of the ones being resurrected in Barbecue (One Television) from the annals of humorous sketches, have to contain an element of bawdy sex? Two cases in point are the one where a farmer succeeds in getting his cows pregnant when he replaces the bull and the other where a man wears a nun’s habit and hails a taxi.
television@timesofmalta.com