TV3’s chatty new panel show Would I Lie To You debuted last night, marking the return of Paul Henry to our screens after more than a year.  What did you think of his latest venture?

"It isn’t ok to tell a lie, it’s our absolute obligation. Lies are the wallpaper of society – covering some pretty ugly construction." - Would I Lie To You? team captain Jon Bridges.

Before he jets off to start his new gig next week as the host of Channel Ten’s new Breakfast show in Australia, Paul Henry, the Basil Brush of New Zealand TV, returned to our screens last night with Would I Lie To You?, a celebrity panel show based on a popular British format.  

Would I Lie To You? is a bit of a throwback to celebrity panel shows of the eighties and nineties, like hideous charades show Give Us A Clue (which also spawned an equally bad local version) or the brilliant Shooting Stars.  In Would I Lie To You?, local celebrities spin some wild yarns and use their powers of persuasion to convince the opposing team that their often outlandish statements are in fact true.

TV producer and presenter Jon Bridges, and Jesse Mulligan, comedian and 7 Days panelist head up teams of three while Henry dispenses the points as he sees fit.  Paul Henry's trademark acerbic wit has not abandoned him during his hiatus, but with a semi-scripted show like Would I Lie To You?, it’s difficult to tell if it’s him cracking the jokes or someone writing in his voice.  

In the first category, “Home Truths”, actress Robyn Malcolm had to think on her feet (actually on her seat, behind her streaky console) and concoct a plausible lie explaining why she demanded three rotisserie chickens in her Outrageous Fortune contract.  While she made a good show of it, no one was buying that Malcolm is the type to make diva demands and request the removal of all the brown M&Ms or a litter of puppies, like Van Halen or Mariah Carey, nor a clutch of roasted fowls.  After that tall tale, it was easy to believe that Oliver Driver could be mistaken for Jeremy “Newsboy” Wells.

Comedian Penny Ashton shouldn’t purchase a deerstalker hat just yet, because despite grilling her opponents like a CSI detective, her track record for filtering truth from fiction wasn’t stellar, while Ewen Gilmour shared a wholly believable, and truthful, anecdote about his misspent youth and a stolen car battery, but his other inventions weren't quite so credible.

Guest panelists Robyn Malcolm and Oliver Driver were handed the best lies, with semi-giant Driver in hysterics at the idea that he was the shortest member of his family while Malcolm was deserving of an Academy Award for her performance in the "This Is My...." round, where all three panelists explain their relationship to a guest, except only one of them is genuine.  Malcolm convinced her opponents that guest Adam was her “first ever screen birth baby”, despite Adam apparently being a middle-aged man, meaning Malcolm would have had the world's longest gestational period, or a really weird giant on-screen newborn.   

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction, but in Would I Lie To You?, the fiction is just too strange; all the lies were completely obvious!  However, this is just a bit of fluffy, light-hearted fun and the more astonishing stories did garner the biggest laughs.  Like most panel shows, the quality of each episode varies depending on which guests feature each week and who has the quickest wit, so it will be interesting to see which of our local personalities is the most skilled fibber in episodes to come.

Would I Lie To You?
TV3
Sundays, 7m