Dino A Great Start To A Fab Series
Green Guide; Switch on TV
Jim Schembri
10 February 1994
The Age
Wednesday: Under the Skin: Dino, Where You Been? SBS, 8pm.
QUITE simply, the first program in SBS’s innovative series Under the Skin, the comedy romantic thriller Dino, Where You Been?, is the funniest, zappiest, most kinetic 30 minutes of television comedy since the Kipper and the Corpse episode of Fawlty Towers.
Dino (Arthur Angel) is a high school dag of epic proportions. As agile as an elephant in ballet shoes, he has the hots for class mate Jennifer (Nadine Garner), who is almost as attractive as she is inaccessible.
She has a boyfriend with a fast car and a mobile phone permanently stuck to the side of his head. Her father is the political opponent of Dino’s father (played by Joe Spano). All seems hopeless, but Dino is set to defy his pizza-shop owning parents and the infamous Melbourne traffic to make it to a date with her.
Part of the brief of Under the Sun is to showcase little known Australian film-making and acting talent. In that regard, Dino is blessed with a fantastic creative duo: director Aleksi Vellis (he did Nirvana Street Murder) energises the script by John Ruane (director of Death in Brunswick); and Arthur Angel, whose frenetic performance turns Dino into the most lovable wog since George Kapiniaris on Acropolis Now grabbed his head in pain and complained of suffering from a migrant.
The series is also sprinkled with high-profile actors. Here, Nadine Garner, fresh from another triumphant stint in Britain, shows that since the heady days of The Henderson Kids she has matured greatly, not only as an actor but as a woman, which I know sounds a bit sexist but … ahm …. oh, forget it. She’s a very good actor who happens to be gorgeous. Is that my fault?