Burke's Backyard
Channel 9
Fridays, 7.30pm
Reviewed by Al McCall
Since Australia missed out on feudalism, any new chum arriving in the antipodes was surely keen on a piece of land to call their own. Aside from the fact that the previous owners weren't consulted about its distribution, putting down roots in the new land meant owning a patch of it. Before long the backyard was invented, and soon after that along came Don Burke to tell us how to enjoy it.
Mine is a sketchy history but you can get the idea: just add the Hill's hoist, a barbie and a hard-working Victor two-stroke rotary lawn mower to complete the picture and you have the makings of many a suburban idyll (home loan interest rates aside).
This is your basic model. Fence it in. Raise 2.5 children in it. Work hard. Pay it off. And die.
As I say, mine is a sketchy history.
If, perchance, you'd like a better return from the real estate, then maybe you should consider gardening. If such green thumbery is your preference, then you're sure to be a client of Don's.
For 10 years, we've been invited to explore outback with Don Burke. Search hard and long enough, and maybe you'll find the lifestyle for which you yearn.
To your basic backyard formula you can add any number of ingredients to coax ambience from the soil you own. Just ask Don — the possibilities are immense — he's the expert. (And what Don doesn't know, he leads us to believe, isn't worth knowing.)
You may have to shell out to make over your plot in line with current backyard trends (just ask Don what they are). Nurseries nationwide know what gets the green thumbs up on Friday night is sure to sell well over the weekend. After all, Don Burke's roots are planted in an industry that can market chook poo as an essential element in contemporary outdoor lifestyles.
Any serious gardener will tell you that, despite Burke's occasional usage of botanical Latin, the Gardening Australia team over at the ABC treat flora with more respect than does Don.
If you hadn't noticed, Burke's backyard is bigger than any one person's quarter-acre block. What to eat, who to admire and where to go are all part of the same divot.
What with a celebrity gardener visiting each week or a pet to road test, you don't have to wield a mean garden trowel to want to sit through the program. Burkey invented local lifestyle infotainment, so if you prefer to simply view, rather than visit, the backyard from the comfort of the lounge, it's OK. No-one is forcing you to pull so much as a weed.
Such easy watching belies the actual thrust of Burke's Backyard. In establishing its unique format, Don Burke has harnessed a major myth underscoring Australian nationalism. For the good times to be had in the land of Oz, you need go no further than home ownership — a purchase on which you lavish all your creative energies.
To this he has welded a love of all things native — of native flora and fauna, but perhaps not of the indigenous folk, who weren't noted for their gardening. Throw in a few exotic critters and herbage for excitement and variety. People the environment with notables. Burke's backyard becomes a ready microcosm of the big landscape picture of which it is intended to be but a part.
This proud nationalism in miniature, complete with Don's self-conscious use of "G'day" and "Hoo roo", ensures that the yards, driveways, surrounds and the like that feature in Burke's Backyard are never troubled by the presence of neighbours.
For all intents and purposes, over the fence is another world. What is achieved within these domestic boundaries is the business only of the family which owns the plot. Outside of their combined effort and ability to spend, no other collective activity is considered.
This singular consumption and enjoyment is the gist of what Burke's Backyard is about. Burke turns us nameless masses into an urban peasantry which is idealised for its creative potential to effect verdant change and make of our estates what we will.
That Pauline Hanson featured as a celebrity gardener on Burke's Backyard should come as no surprise.