DoctorStrabismus
Joined Oct 2016
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DoctorStrabismus's rating
Curiously enough when writing about a murder mystery, it was none other than Agatha Christie who first introduced me to the Karoo. In her novel 'The Man in the Brown Suit', set in the 1920s, the principal characters travel by train from Cape Town to what was then Rhodesia, via various places en-route. Early on in their journey they pass through the Karoo, which she describes as "A hot dusty desert of stones and rocks", but also as "Rather a wonderful sight. The great mountains all around, through which we turned and twisted and laboured ever steadily upwards." This is shown off to the full by great camerawork in the course of this production.
Agatha Christie's murder mystery centred upon about South African diamonds, but they are not the only gems from that nation. Based upon Series 1, this is another. We have thus far only watched those ten episodes, so those are what we are reviewing here, but beyond doubt worthy of a 10/10 score.
The characters are fully-fleshed, with plenty of complexity, and extremely well-acted without exception. They bring out the intensity of small town life, where everyone knows what everyone else is doing, sometimes before they have even done it. Here in Australia it is very similar, and even though we have never been to South Africa, the dynamics are so very familiar. There is the local 'Gazette', the small supermarket (the Ko-op), and the traditional butcher -'Slaghuis' in Afrikaans - whose back room serves as the Gazette's editorial office. The layer we don't have in Australia is that of the multiple languages in use, but we do have the racial issues between the indigenous population and those of European ancestry. 'Recipes' puts this right up front with the police chief being black, and two Afrikaaners reporting to him, the younger of whom is dating a girl of mixed race - I think 'Cape-coloured' is the usual description there. It's curious to see how this plays out in the post-Apartheid era. For the police and the young couple, they are genuinely colour-blind, but some of the Afrikaaners in town seem less so. We can relate this to the Australian experience.
And as the central figure to all this, we have Tannie Maria, a Scottish woman living in a remote farmhouse on the Karoo, which she has inherited from a relative. Back in Scotland she has a past, which we will find out more about in Series 2, but as the 'agony aunt' on the Gazette she solves everyone's problems by rustling up a spectacular recipe.
And that is the title. This gives the production a highly unusual, unorthodox and eclectic pace, something which we found very appealing. All these dramatic events are going on in the small town, and so Tannie Maria gets busy in her kitchen. This is her recipe for problem-solving. Oh look, it's a recipe for love and murder!
We look forward to Series 2.
Agatha Christie's murder mystery centred upon about South African diamonds, but they are not the only gems from that nation. Based upon Series 1, this is another. We have thus far only watched those ten episodes, so those are what we are reviewing here, but beyond doubt worthy of a 10/10 score.
The characters are fully-fleshed, with plenty of complexity, and extremely well-acted without exception. They bring out the intensity of small town life, where everyone knows what everyone else is doing, sometimes before they have even done it. Here in Australia it is very similar, and even though we have never been to South Africa, the dynamics are so very familiar. There is the local 'Gazette', the small supermarket (the Ko-op), and the traditional butcher -'Slaghuis' in Afrikaans - whose back room serves as the Gazette's editorial office. The layer we don't have in Australia is that of the multiple languages in use, but we do have the racial issues between the indigenous population and those of European ancestry. 'Recipes' puts this right up front with the police chief being black, and two Afrikaaners reporting to him, the younger of whom is dating a girl of mixed race - I think 'Cape-coloured' is the usual description there. It's curious to see how this plays out in the post-Apartheid era. For the police and the young couple, they are genuinely colour-blind, but some of the Afrikaaners in town seem less so. We can relate this to the Australian experience.
And as the central figure to all this, we have Tannie Maria, a Scottish woman living in a remote farmhouse on the Karoo, which she has inherited from a relative. Back in Scotland she has a past, which we will find out more about in Series 2, but as the 'agony aunt' on the Gazette she solves everyone's problems by rustling up a spectacular recipe.
And that is the title. This gives the production a highly unusual, unorthodox and eclectic pace, something which we found very appealing. All these dramatic events are going on in the small town, and so Tannie Maria gets busy in her kitchen. This is her recipe for problem-solving. Oh look, it's a recipe for love and murder!
We look forward to Series 2.
