Get set for a 'Gutsful' of gripes

Freedom campers. A scene from Gutsful. Photo / TVNZ

A hard-hitting but hilarious new television show will shine a light on our greatest gripes and frustrations.

Made by the team behind Neighbours at War, TVNZ 2's Gutsful tackles the issues everyday Kiwis have "had a gutsful of" - from illegal dumping to freedom campers to an unwanted crematorium.

The show, which starts on Thursday night, will barge into some of New Zealand's cosiest communities to dig up smouldering disputes and burning issues.

Cases the programme will investigate include a dog owner who is hiding bags of dog poop in hedges along their regular walking route.

In another episode, at a scenic surf spot in South Taranaki locals have had enough of freedom campers abusing the environment - one small public toilet is overflowing with rubbish and much worse, leading to one surfing local chaining the toilet shut in protest.

Meanwhile, in west Auckland, the beloved Waitakere ranges are being used as a dumping ground, with piles and piles of tyres being tossed off a cliff and into the native bush below.

And in In Thames, a local funeral director is planning to install a crematorium right in the middle of town. Locals are up in arms at the thought of unwanted pollution spreading over the local cafes and shops.

To mark the start of the series, some of TVNZ's top screen talent has let rip to the Herald on Sunday with a few moans of their own.

"I've had a gutsful of people who burp with their mouth closed and then casually release it and it's associated stench into the conversation," Terry Teo actor Millen Baird said. "It's like tear gas and it makes me wanna start a riot."

Veteran news reader Peter Williams is sick of planners and politicians not being courageous with Auckland's infrastructure.

"The Auckland Harbour Bridge was too small the day it was opened," he said. "The Waterview Tunnel will be overflowing whenever it opens! State Highway 20 through Onehunga and Mt Roskill is onto its second widening and its only been open since 2009."

And Breakfast presenter Brodie Kane has a thing about DIY giant Bunnings.

"The biggest Bunnings in all of the land has just finished being built a stone's throw from my house," she said. "Bang smack in the middle of what I define as Auckland suburbia.

"In the middle of a housing crisis I often gaze up at it and wonder how many apartments we could've built there instead. I won't be attending, not even for the sausage sizzle."

• The first episode of Gutsful screens on TVNZ 2 on Thursday at 8.30pm.