The Sunday Times 27/02/2005
Sexual tension is not a big feature of Paisean Faisean (TG4, Mon), a bizarre dating game show which attempts to marry the art of seduction with the science of clothes shopping. Hosted with puppyish enthusiasm by Aoife Ni Thuairisg, the series has a stagy, twee atmosphere but is somewhat redeemed by the sheer strangeness of its format.
Three guys are given €300 each and despatched to a high street store to create an outfit for a fashion-conscious young woman, about whom they are given only cursory information. The woman then tries on the selected clothes, and goes for dinner with the designer of her favourite ensemble.
Paisean Faisean seems to have been conceived as a platform for farce rather than romance. Young men, as everyone knows, are much better at thinking about undressing women than dressing them. Lost in the chiffon jungle of the ladies boutique, they are bound to stumble about like gawping fools, the proverbial goats staring at lingerie — right? Well, wrong actually. The most revealing aspect of the show is the practised ease, and indeed frequent flair, with which most of the blokes browse through the dress racks. It’s all done in the name of love, and the dating game.
John Murphy 