David McPhail

Producer, writer and actor David McPhail has appeared on TV screens as Roger Douglas, Keith Holyoake and Tina Turner. But it is his impersonation of former prime minister Sir Robert Muldoon that sealed his place in popular culture - shrinking, in the words of writer Steve Braunias, "the most terrifying man in New Zealand" to a goblin-sized joke. 

McPhail first came to the attention of the Kiwi public with A Week of It, one of the most successful Kiwi comedy shows of the 70s. He went on to work with comic partner-in-crime Jon Gadsby on the long-running shows Issues, and McPhail and Gadsby. In 2005, McPhail played a controversially straight-talking teacher in popular satire Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby.

David McPhail has lived much of his life in his birthplace of Christchurch. He began studying English at Canterbury University, but dropped his studies to become a cub reporter on The Press. The newspaper sent him to Ashburton despite his protests.

During this period he formed revue group The Merely Players with a number of his future collaborators, produced music shows, was a reporter on regional magazine programmes, appeared in Roger Simpson's docu-drama Richard Pearse, and worked on early sketch show Something To Look Forward To (1976). His career path would be sealed after being introduced to former law student Jon Gadsby at a party, and persuading a TVNZ executive to let him make a pilot for a topical satire show called A Week of It. 

A Week of It debuted in 1977 in a graveyard 10 past 10 at night slot. It soon graduated to prime time. Daring for its period, the show mixed political satire and potshots at Kiwi culture and sport. McPhail got the job of impersonating prime minister Robert Muldoon, since no-one else in the cast looked anything like him. Long fascinated by his political alter-ego, McPhail's Muldoon impersonations became iconic in several further programmes (including McPhail and Gadsby). He would later shed the "crude caricature" of earlier days to write and star in one man dramatic play Muldoon (2003).

A Week of It won Feltex Awards for best entertainment programme in 1978 and 1980, with McPhail even beating castmembers from TV epic The Governor to the best actor award. The show's writing team included McPhail, Gadsby and offscreen partner in crime A.K. Grant.

The trio would be central to creating a run of successful comedy shows, including the award-winning skit show McPhail and Gadsby. McPhail and Gadsby lasted seven seasons, and in 1983 won a Feltex Award for best entertainment show.

"They were called satirical shows, but in the true sense of satire, they never put the knife between the ribs," McPhail says of A Week of It and McPhail and Gadsby. "We didn't want people sitting there saying, ‘ooh, that's true.' We wanted them to laugh."

The team also combined on the skit show Issues, and sitcom Letter to Blanchy. In 1987 McPhail was a foundation shareholder of TV3, and worked behind the scenes on helping set up the new network. In the 90s, McPhail and Gadsby re-teamed on Issues, a skit based comedy series which weathered a number of variations of channel and title. The show's cast included Rawiri Paratene, Mark Wright, Rima Te Wiata, Alison Wall and Willy de Wit.

With Letter to Blanchy in 1994, the McPhail/Gadsby/Grant team left the skit format behind. McPhail plays a straight-laced accountant caught up in Barry Crump-style mishaps with two down to earth mates (Gadsby and longtime offsider Peter Rowley). In 2008, McPhail and Gadsby began touring the successful play Letter To Blanchy: Stir Crazy.

The 90s saw McPhail playing a straight role as finance minister Roger Douglas in political mini-series Fallout.

McPhail's career as a producer and director has included extensive work both on the various television shows, and on stage - often for Christchurch's Court Theatre. He also worked behind the scenes as a director on Pio Terei's comedy show The Life and Times of Te Tutu (about an 1800s Māori chief).

In 2005, feeling like he was "in a straitjacket muttering broken Swahili", McPhail went through gruelling auditions with Danny Mulheron and Tom Scott, before winning the starring role in their un-PC satire Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby. The show chronicles the arrival at a low decile school of a man described by officials as "an out-dated, reactionary, racist, sexist teacher completely out of touch with educational theory in the second millennium." McPhail described the role of Gormsby as like nothing he had done before. The Sydney Morning Herald found the show "quick-witted" and "darkly funny"; a second series followed.

In 2006 McPhail played a judge in race relations mockumentary The Waimate Conspiracy, one of his only movies to date. The following year he portrayed eccentric superhero The Green Termite in children's comedy The Amazing Extraordinary Friends. The show's director and co-writer was McPhail's son Matt, who had first appeared on one of McPhail senior's comedy shows as a child.

In 1995, McPhail received the QSM for service to the community. In 2008 he was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in recognition of services to television and the theatre. Two years later he published the book The Years Before My Death: Memories of a Comic Life (Longacre).

Sources include
Steve Braunias, 'Dear piggy' (Interview) - NZ Listener, 28 June 2003, Issue 3294
Lesley Ann Low, 'tv previews' (Review of Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby) - The Sydney Morning Herald (The Guide section), 24 November 2005, Page 14
David McPhail, 'A class of his own' - Sunday Star-Times, (Escape section) 1 May 2005, Page 1