Down and dirty with the Bard

The concept is hardly original but new local drama The Market (last night, TV2, 10.25pm) is so far making a good fist of its Romeo and Juliet story, set among the stalls in the cultural melting pot of the Otara market.

It's a brave man who'd attempt yet another transposition of Shakespeare's doomed young lovers into the gritty modern urban world, but writers Rene Naufahu, Brett Ihaka and Matthew Grainger have succeeded in injecting a distinctly South Auckland flavour into the proceedings. Fair Verona translates rather well into Otara fair.

This is the other, dark side of bro'Town, where the bros and the families are at war across racial lines: the Maori Johnson family and the Samoan Lima clan are sworn enemies since Sef Lima killed Ritchie Johnson - or so the Johnsons claim.

The story began with the Johnsons marking the fifth anniversary of Ritchie's death at the same time as Sef Lima returned from a five-year prison sentence. Also arriving on the scene was young Julia Lima, fresh off the boat - okay, the plane at Mangere, to be more accurate, but after five years in the islands she's wide-eyed with wonder at the changes in her home town.

Julia, browsing the market, immediately caught the eye of Tipene Johnson, in a diverting twist on the love-at-first-sight scene, with the teenagers exchanging shy glances through the stall's T-shirt racks. The fragrant Julia has a lot of catching up to do in terms of family history. She's not yet up with the play regarding the feud with the Johnson whanau, nor that her brother's spent five years in clink.

There's another handicap beside the feud. Julia's grandmother, size extra large, is a formidable chaperone. She's as fearsome as she is godfearing, the kind of granny who skins blokes with her bare teeth.

Making a drama in half-hour chunks is a real challenge, with so little time to develop characters and get the audience hooked into the story. The Market must be commended for its ambition, setting up the history of the feud, the meeting of the lovers, returning Sef from prison and straight into the flying fists of boxer Mike Johnson, and building tension as we learn Mike is one of those psychopathic pugilists banned from his gym for "not knowing when to stop". If it was all a little disjointed at times, blame the restrictions of the short format.

Its chief achievement was setting a tone which was menacing and funny - something local drama often struggles with. The Shakespearean spirit of high tragedy with comic relief is alive and well in Southside: the cheeky banter between the siblings and to their elders and betters delivers some laugh out loud lines.

Like the bard, this is drama which is not afraid to get down and dirty (although the first episode's sex scene was gratuitously explicit. And if that's what put this drama in its user-unfriendly late-night slot then it wasn't worth it). It delights in slipping in a bit of bawdy satire: when Granny recoiled in disgust at a stall selling g-strings, and warned Julia that even to look at one equals instant pregnancy, Julia replied: "Maybe that's what the Virgin Mary was wearing when she met Joseph."

Actors Alina Transom and Emile Taungaroa seem equal to the job as the star-crossed lovers, in particular Transom plays Julia with an alluring frankness which steers well clear of coyness.

After just one instalment, The Market's wares look promising. "Tipene, Tipene. Wherefore art thou, Tipene?" Yes, Shakespeare could do a lot worse than getting down with the brown in Otara town.