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Conviction Kitchen

Ian Curley wants to give ex-crims a second chance in Seven's new observational doco. But will the audience be just as forgiving?

Conviction Kitchen is the World’s Strictest Parents of cooking. In fact it’s not a cooking show, Seven insists.

It’s a show about transformation. And like World’s Strictest Parents, it takes rough diamonds (and that’s putting it nicely) and gives them an opportunity to turn things around by running a working restaurant.

Executive Chef, and a former criminal himself, Ian Curley tells 16 recently-released crims that they all deserve a second chance.

Rehabilitation is an integral part of our justice system and if this show is to succeed it will need the audience to be empathetic. It uses mood music, a tough-love chef and personal stories to help achieve such. As I watched the first episode, I couldn’t help but feel Today Tonight could take exactly the same 16 people and film them in such a way to tell us exactly why they don’t deserve a second chance. That’s television for you.

The crimes the group were incarcerated for include fraud, burglary, break and enter, producing dangerous drugs, dangerous driving and assault (Curley was himself guilty of gang violence as a teenager in the UK). One is even a former cop.

But the disclosed details of their records vary from person to person: not all the crimes are evident, nor all the terms, nor the number of convictions. They’re just all collectively bad ok?

In the first episode Curley and Restaurant Manager Lisa Parker size up the 16 as they enter the workplace shell which will be made over into Brisbane’s Conviction restaurant (the space was hired for the duration of the shoot). They are already making judgements based on first impressions, presumably just as a patron might.

Divided into teams of two, they are sent to a market to purchase produce and given a rundown on the kitchen facilities by Sous Chef Jean-Vital Syverin. While one contestant has charge of cooking, the other must set the table under the eyes of Parker. The challenges of setting a dining table aren’t exactly high stakes.

As he tastes the food Curley is blunt. The food is pretty crap, how will he ever open a restaurant in 2 weeks time? Thankfully he has none of the bitch factor of Gordon Ramsay. When he hears the stories of the ex-crims he emphasises he is here to help.

But he only has places for eleven. Some of them need to be culled. Here is where television has manipulated the circumstance in order to deliver the drama. After hearing how everybody wanted to turn their life around, some tearfully, Conviction Kitchen sends some of the group home. Sorry guys. Why didn’t it simply start with the selected team?

Alternatively, why didn’t it have a bigger pool of people so that didn’t it reek of Casting topping things up with some who were destined to be unsuccessful? No second chances for them.

On the positive side Curley is very good talent as the centre of this universe. A big bear of a bloke (he even has the British chef accent) he wears his heart on his sleeve and it seems like a heart big enough for all. Parker is less confident as the obligatory sidekick.

With Curley’s tough-love, the show also avoids the aggressive tone of its Canadian original, a wise move given the current climate of this genre.

But the first episode also lacks the “wow” factor of a glossy MasterChef. Ooops. It’s not a cooking show, what was I thinking? Hopefully this will improve once the team begins to take to the task and we get to watch a group dynamic under pressure.

Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen worked because its streetkids were social outcasts, but Conviction Kitchen will have a tougher ask given its premise. Especially if media decide to take a closer look at some of their criminal records, or worse, the victims of their crimes. I just have a horrible feeling.

That’s when Curley will really be needed.

Conviction Kitchen airs 9:30pm Tuesday on Seven.

34 Responses

  1. Conviction Kitchen, what a great show and Ian Curley and Lisa are fantastic people who were prepared to give people a 2nd chance. It was good they said what all the contentestants were doing now and its a shame that one of them is back in jail. Great Show – loved it. Thanks channel 7.

  2. I have been enjoying Conviction Kitchen but tonight’s show where Ian Curley (and others) keeps saying that that ‘these are the people who put you in gaol’ is utterly wrong. These people put themselves in gaol. The prison officers are there to keep prisoners secure. They did not put them there. Taking responsibility for their crimes is the first step to changing their lives for the better.

  3. i think that Ian Curley has done a great thing, Im a ex crim and finding it hard to get work and this is after being out for 6 years,this show has given the guys(crims) a chance to look faward to something. To keep there minds on something else is a good thing. Too many people get out and run a muck and end up back in there, there needs to be things in place where something is worth while staying out for.it seams family,friends and the fear of going back is not enough anymore.Well done its getting talked about.

  4. Everyone deserves a second chance or more but from what I can see most ( except maybe two) of these people did hurt others, I knew one of them personally when I was younger, I believe one of them commited armed robbery?? How would you like to see the person who threatened you with a weapon on television? The person who broke into your home and stole your belongings while you were sleeping?? And just because a particular criminal only got caught for a non-violent crime doesn’t mean they have not commited any, most criminals are just that, yeah there are afew that may have made one serious mistake and thats it, or only really hurt themselves but thats not the majority.

  5. The thing is: some people have a crimnal convictions is that sometimes there just the people that got caught thiss time. There so many people out there doing drugs, dealing drugs, stealing cars and money, drink driving etc etc but the ones that arent actually caught and have the record on paper arent treated like ex-crim.s (as they say) they just keep doing it and getting away with it for years and years.
    But sometimes some people get caught, can learn there lesson, take their 2nd chance and live a good life….. But they are branded as jail birds or ex-crims….while others who havent been caught and sent to jail are still committing those crimes years later…….everyone should try thinking outside the square, dont just see things black and white and try their shoes on.

  6. I think the show is a great idea. I think everyone deserves a second chance but I do wonder about the second chance their victims got? Example – dealing drugs has wreaked heaps of lives (I read somewhere that one of them got caught for that). Overall, I am looking forward to further episodes to see what eventuates….

  7. @sean

    Sometimes they are mistakes that people make because of a disprate situtation they may be in at that point of there life. Like having no other support when u have a child to feed and feeling guilty because they just feel like. A failure and want to give there child more in life.
    People shouldnt put everyone in the same boat untill the now the reasons or story. Some people comitt a crime and never ever do it again and learn from that ‘Mistake’ of the crime and make a better life for them selves.
    We are not talking murders and sex offenders here. All crimes are different and so are people and how and why the committed it and how they go about maiking up for it.

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