meet the natives

[speedlamper 0]

looks quite good

 

We're used to the likes of Bruce Parry getting to know exotic tribes, but what, you have to wonder, would those tribes make of us? Channel 4 have arranged for fi ve men from the South Pacific island of Tanna to abandon their penis sheaths and mud huts for a fact-finding trip to Britain. The result is a delightful piece of fl uffy TV anthropology, the kind of thing that makes you chuckle before it makes you stop and think. What will amaze them most: the clothes, the cars, or the food? No, it's the way we keep pigs - where's the fun in artificial insemination? And the visitors are understandably baffled as to why, when rabbits are killed to protect crops, nobody wears rabbit-skin coats. The series tries to get a lot of mileage out of the men's bizarre mission to take home Prince Philip, whom they worship as the son of their God. But more fun comes from innocent questions such as "Don't you get bored of ironing?"