Uka: Competitive card-playing comes to prime-time TV – the result is compelling
REVIEW: Having previously championed karaoke and the country’s forklift drivers, Whaakata Māori is now bringing competitive card-playing to prime-time television.
Read this story in te reo Māori and English here. / Pānuitia tēnei i te reo Māori me te reo Pākehā ki konei.
Uka draws together 16 of the “best and funniest” Māori euchre players from across the motu together for a tournament to find out who is Aotearoa’s best duo.
Kicking off this Friday (June 16) at 8pm, it’s actually the second season of the show which first debuted in July 2021. Back then, it just featured players from the Tainui region, but while it still boasts original hosts Rāhui Papa and Maria Huata – and essentially the same format (each of the 10-episodes focuses on two 10-minute match-ups) – there have been a few changes.
Gone are the on-screen displays of everyone’s cards, while Papa and Huata’s sometimes hilarious and informative live commentaries have been replaced by a more intimate-feeling straight audio-feed from the action at the centre of the Henderson studio. While that means newbies might not learn as much about the nuance and skill (and luck) involved, it does showcase the bilingual banter and bluffing that the players say provides much of the joy of the game itself.
An overhead camera gives us a good view of all the action, while players cackle and cajole each other along – unless they’re in the lead, in which case there are exhortations to slow the game down. And while the prospect of watching cards could be the televisual equivalent of paint drying for many, some of the matches can get pretty exciting as the clock ticks down (one of the early bouts is literally decided by a coin toss after a last-second “Hail Mary” play).
Heavily
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