With the advent of the information age and the internet,
everyone who has an opinion has an opportunity of getting heard, no matter how uninformed
those opinions might be. Celebrities, of
course, are no different, particularly as their opinions and ideas are more
likely to seem authoritative simply because they are celebrities in the first
place. We see it everywhere: celebrities
telling us how to save the rhino, stop global warming and even how to frost our
cakes.
kykNET’s new offering,
Die
Nataniel Tafel, is more of the same, when beloved national treasure and performer,
Nataniel, takes to the kitchen and starts dishing out quirky cooking advice instead.
Apart from being famous for his now clearly
defunct brown rice and lentil diet and apart from boasting cheeks that give
glowing testament to his great love of good food, we can’t help but wonder:
what exactly does Nataniel know about cooking?
And when he clumsily wields a knife, plates up like your grandmother and
smothers his dessert with copious amounts of raw egg whites, the answer is
clearly: very little.
As any student of the culinary arts will tell you, the first
chapter of any authoritative text on the subject is an exhaustive treatise on
food hygiene and the horrible diseases and ailments you can inflict on the
general public when you choose to ignore these guidelines. Whilst Nataniel quite patronizingly takes to
the air to educate the nation about the basics of cooking, it would seem that
he himself is actually the one that needs some education.
Culinary
faux pas aside,
Die
Nataniel Tafel is still an excellent vehicle for everything Nataniel.
Dressed in lots of somber slimming black, and
in all manner of collars and ties apparently aimed purely at hiding his neck,
Nataniel starts the show off perched uncomfortably on the edge of a table… but then
he opens his mouth and hilarity ensues as we are - as always - entranced by his
natural genius for making the ordinary seem bizarre, and the bizarre oh so
common place.
A slightly longer version
of the famous Nataniel
Checkers advertisements, Nataniel also does a bit
of cooking (sort of), hosts viewers who share recipes, gives advice on how to decorate
a table, indulges in a bit of
Checkers product placement and even presents a master class (but sadly nothing about food hygiene
so far.)
A must see for Nataniel fans and bored middle aged housewives alike, Die Nataniel Tafel is
sure to entertain. Whether you will be
trying out those recipes is another matter entirely.
Die Nataniel Tafel
amuses on kykNET on Thursdays at 19h30
