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Conviction Kitchen for Seven

Seven is in pre-production on Conviction Kitchen, in which prisoners with no culinary experience are given three weeks to open a restaurant.

Last February TV Tonight told you about Conviction Kitchen, a Canadian series in which 24 ex-criminals, with no culinary experience, are given three weeks to open a restaurant.

TV Tonight now understands Seven is in pre-production on this factual series, to film at a Brisbane venue soon.

A deal is also believed to have been secured with Queensland Dept of Corrections to about 18 prisoners who are about to be released back into the community. It’s not the first time a TV series has included prisoners in a series, with ABC recently producing Jailbirds under choirmaster Jonathan Welch.

A prominent chef from Melbourne will be running the kitchen and training the participants.

The Canadian series featured 84 former bank robbers, thieves and petty offenders who were whittled down to seven waiters and six cooks, followed by a three-week boot camp.

“This is probably the most emotional show we’ve ever made,” said Canada’s Cineflex president of programming Simon Lloyd. “You’ve got someone taking heroin, who can’t stay in the restaurant because he can’t be around recovering addicts.”

Seven has a number of new productions said to be in development with a deal to be struck soon with Disney for a local version of The Amazing Race, plus plans for a local version of Iron Chef and the greenlight rumoured to have been given to drama pilot Winners and Losers.

19 Responses

  1. i think that this show sounds good. I’ve been in prision before and now i find it hard to find jobs .why didn’t the creator of this show concentrate on the prision systems in Victoria instead of Queensland.

  2. I know somebody who has participate in this show, he was a young boy who went through alot in his life, this show has given him a great opportunity. So think before you be quick to judge, just becuase you may not be interested doesn’t mean that this show hasn’t given some of the less fortunate the opportunity to turn their lives around for the better.

  3. Geez, this is just getting ridiculous. Within a couple of months any restaurant opened will be closed due to dwindling interest.
    Nothing more than a lame ploy to get some cheap ratings. Pathetic.

  4. This reminds me of Dance your Ass off which Nine acquired. But Seven is even going one step further and making their own version!!! Oh the humanity!! You think Australians will give a damn about prisoners cooking? The reason people love MC so much is the passion by the trainee chefs, we love them and we want them to succeed. People will tune in for a second to laugh and then tune out. Seven you were making good choices till now. Fail.

  5. Horrible. Who knows what depths we’ll plumb? Deportation Dilemma? Pitting refugees locked up at Villawood in cook offs against other detainees … the worst dish of the night sees you booted off the show and onto the first plane back to your home country. God, I hope no network ideas people read this website.

  6. Apparently nine are looking at doing some sort of cooking show as well which is celebrity based. It will be interesting if people get cooking fatigue. I’m guessing yes but maybe that’s why they are doing it.

  7. Excited to hear about this local version of The Amazing Race!!!
    Although knowing Australian versions of things it’ll be pretty mediocre….

  8. Don’t we have Government programmes to assist ex-prisoners to assimilate into society and find a job? Everyone deserves a chance but this seems like being rewarded for bad behaviour. This doesn’t feel right somehow. Also, who knew that so many people aspired to becoming chefs? This cooking on TV phenomena is getting out of hand.

  9. this is pathetic and typical of 7. because 10 have a great cooking show. why don’t we try and do the same thing as them. the people that run the programing at 7 are a few sandwhiches short of a picnic

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