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The Chaser’s Media Circus, ABC, 8pm
Craig Reucassel and Chas Licciardello return with the latest vehicle of The Chaser brand and there’s no shortage of material to get their teeth into. Presumably they will judge their success by the length of time that elapses before Malcolm Turnbull gets on the phone to Mark Scott.
Ainsley Harriott’s Street Food, SBS, 8.30pm
Ainsley Harriott is having a ball in this series and it shows. What’s not to like in a gig that involves travelling the world and sampling and cooking street food? In this episode, Harriott tools around the streets of Taipei, chatting with the locals and getting his nose into a variety of steaming bowls of Taiwanese goodness. Apparently, if you’re from these parts, a dish called three-cup chicken is the thing. It’s one of those deceptively simple creations (the name comes from the equal parts rice wine, soy and sesame oil) which everyone has their own ideas on the best way to cook.
Bespoke, ABC, 10pm
Where does your stuff come from? Who made it? Is it mass-produced or lovingly handcrafted? Do you give a toss? These are some of the questions explored by Marcus Westbury in this series. Westbury aims to dissect the modern fetish for artisanal, handmade goods. He wants to examine “the making, the selling and the selling of the making”. And he does a reasonable, if slightly earnest job as he interviews some of the folk involved in all this new craftiness. One of the figures quoted – although how it’s arrived at is a mystery – is that the number of people making craft has tripled in just six years. (Perhaps they counted the number of fixie bike wheels on Pyrmont Bridge and divided by two.) Etsy certainly has a lot to answer for. Of course, at the heart of the hand-crafted dream lies a contradiction. As your product becomes more popular, so too does the pressure to automate and move towards mass production. How far can one scale up production and still claim authentic, artisanal status? It’s a question Westbury asks of, among others, a woman who produces very popular hand-painted bicycle bells. In the end, though, you are left with the feeling this is all a self-indulgent pre-occupation of wealthy westerners.
Nick Galvin
PAY TV
Eat Well for Less, LifeStyle You, 8.30pm
Another fine episode of the series in which TV grocers Gregg Wallace and Chris Bavin help British families save thousands of dollars a year on their food bills. Tonight they’re off to picturesque Stratford-upon-Avon, where Hannah and Tim are spending an astronomical amount on groceries for themselves and their four kids. Much of the problem is Hannah’s devotion to expensive brand names and her insistence on buying pre-chopped vegetables that cost twice as much as loose veg. Wallace and Bavin soon put them back on course via blind taste-testing of cheaper products, a crash course in making tasty snacks from scratch, and some behind-the-scenes insights into the making of yoghurt, pasta sauces and increasingly popular supermarket take-away curries.
Brad Newsome