KEY POINTS:
Last night's The Man Who Lost His Head (Sunday Theatre, TV One) was billed as a light-hearted drama. It seemed funnier than the billing might imply - at least until you settled into the thing and stopped laughing every time that big museum of ours on the hill
was referred to as "the British Imperial Museum".
Also, anyone who has seen Men Behaving Badly as many times as I have has a job suspending belief any time they see Martin Clunes in anything else.
To cope with the idea of him wandering around a fictional place called Otakataka, all stiff-upper-lip and boring, was always going to take a decent bit of adjustment.
Then there was the back story. Clunes' character, Ian Bennett, is a career museum man. To get up the next career rung, he has to go to Otakataka to assess whether it's appropriate for the museum to return the carved head of their ancestor, Takataka, to a predominantly Maori community. That was not the funny bit.
This was: Takataka went to Britain in the 1860s to get guns, but somehow ended up imprisoned in the mansion of a rich woman who (I think this is right; I was shrieking with laughter at the time) kept him for use as a sex toy. He contracted syphilis and died - but not before he could carve his likeness, with the idea of sending the carving home to his people.
Sadly (still laughing, sorry) he died before he could pop it in the mail. His heart-broken father proclaimed that prosperity would be a stranger to the people of Otakataka until the head came home.
You knew exactly where all this was heading. Ian was about to get married to his uptight English rose, who was more interested in the wedding plans than a bit of rumpy-pumpy. In Otakataka he fell for the lovely teacher, Lollie (Nicola Kawana). There were lots of jolly romps. He gave her class a boring lesson on the Egyptians, which ended in wrapping a kid in loo paper. The kids got to his conscience first. But then, how would you feel if a bunch of Maori took a liking to Stonehenge and shipped it back to Dargaville Museum?
New Zealand certainly looked, if not exactly exotic, then certainly eccentric.
We really do greet overseas guests by poking sticks at their faces; by poking our tongues out. It is possible we might put them up in a bedroom with a stuffed cat and a picture of the Duke of Edinburgh. We know that everyone from Britain loves Coro Street. "In you come, it's just starting - I knew you wouldn't want to miss it," said Mary (a delightful cameo from Elizabeth McCrae).
I'm not sure this was telly you wouldn't want to miss but it was enjoyable enough - nicely scripted, and it looked lovely in a Whale Rider kind of way.
This was a joint production for TV One and ITV. I'd love to know how it went down with all those imperialists.
