TV Review: Rural Drift

Rural Drift sees hapless Aucklander Orland move into a squalid house in the Hokianga. Photo / Supplied

One of my favourite films is Withnail and I. It is a cult hit about a couple of angry and hopeless actors who live in a squalid flat in London and take a holiday in a remote cottage in Wales. At a wild guess, I think Kiwi comedian Orlando Stewart likes it, too. I'm just assuming, because of the bit in his new TV2 comedy series Rural Drift in which he wears polythene bags on his feet- the farmer in Withnail does too, so it seems like a homage.

There is also much squalor facing hapless Aucklander Orlando, as he arrives at the tag-strewn house in Hokianga, which he has inherited and is planning to turn into a lifestyle block.

To add drama, he has a wife and children back home in Pakuranga who are expecting to move up and live on a designer pig farm. Since the ramshackle house has a big penis graffitied on the outside wall, one hopes that quite a bit will happen in the intervening episodes.

I realise I am making Rural Drift sound like a normal fish-out-of-water series, like something Te Radar or Marc Ellis would do: "city dude moves to the country and learns life lessons from folksy locals."

But nothing Orlando Stewart does is normal. He was dementedly brilliant as the manager in the series Wayne Anderson: Singer of Songs and he has that same psycho humour. But I am not loving him as much in Rural Drift.

It's not just that he seems to be channelling Van West from Outrageous Fortune. It is just that the whole schtick of mixing reality and satire and faux documentary is starting to feel less like a clever metaphysical conceit breaking down the conventions of television and more, well, annoying and like having your head messed with.

There is no way of telling what is real and what isn't _ this isn't reality TV, it's surreality TV. Here's an example. After Orlando and his friend Nathan move to Hokianga they meet their neighbour, Graham Josephs, who has been using their house as a fish smoker. Then, in the credits, a Graham Josephs gets a credit for being the series' pig-wrangler. It's all too blimmin' existential for me. The problem with all this clever-dickiness around the format is that it gets in the way of what the show is supposed to be about _ being funny.

The local characters in Hokianga all seem to be cheesy caricatures of hard case "chur bro" Maori. And the parts that are meant to be funny seem stagy, as in this exchange in the Horeke pub. Maori woman with moko to Orlando: "If you were my husband I'd put poison in your drink." Responds Orlando: "If I was your husband I'd drink it." Great line but, unfortunately, Winston Churchill said it first. Rural Drift's promo material promises Orlando and Nathan will get to grips over the rest of the six-part series with manual labour, buying and raising animals and fitting into the Nga Puhi community. Maybe it will get funnier when it gets into the nitty-gritty. And it could always be used as an instructional video by Kaikohe's Winz office.

Rural Drift, TV2, Wednesdays 10.30pm.

-Herald On Sunday / View