REVIEW: Doing the voice-over, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall reverts to a certain kind of non-stop mindless chatter: I can only describe it as "grandparent watching vulnerable young grandchild play team sport for first time". Faced with stunning, heart-rending ineptitude the grandparent can only prattle encouragingly, which the child can't hear and which drives the child's parents mad.

The boys in Prime's new TV series Three Hungry Boys (Saturday, 7pm), however, are strictly speaking young men, and mostly not inept. Cutely, their names all start with T - Tim, Thom and Trevor. They're in one of those Kombi vans that were once de rigueur for young New Zealanders in Europe.

In a desperate attempt to think of a new idea, something, anything, to do with food and travel, someone has come up with three young men living by scavenging. Apparently the three Ts started it by writing to Hugh asking to borrow a video camera to film a trip round Europe. Always the entrepreneur, he came back with a film crew and a suggestion: that they have no money (paying for petrol doesn't seem to be mentioned) and have to catch, gather, work or scrounge for food. In Scotland.

Tim is capable when it comes to catching fish and he dives in happily to look. "Well spotted Tim!' carols Hugh as Tim surfaces clutching something. Then it's the three of them scrambling round looking at what's already washed up - "Boiled shore crabs - not the heartiest supper, but could be tasty," Hugh says, always the optimist. And "out of the hundreds of seaweeds only six are edible . . . and this one is!"

Meanwhile they've sussed that if they're going to get something tasty, they need to do some swapping.

The fish and chip shop owner, eyes warily on camera in case this is something to do with being filmed for having filthy hygiene habits, relaxes and swaps some of his cooking fat for their fish. Then they meet a man who smokes fish and before you know it they're shucking scallops and chopping wood and yum!

Finally Hugh does shut up. At least the three Ts are intelligent, personable and useful. And in these times there's something strangely lovely about frugality.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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