Roger Hall: sitcom king...

Interview – 2011

Playwright and screenwriter Roger Hall has made a significant contribution to New Zealand’s television landscape. Two of his highly successful stage comedies became TV hits — Gliding On and Neighbourhood Watch. He also wrote for a number of early TV comedies, plus pioneering drama Pukemanu and political satire Spin Doctors.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Hall talks about:

Rolling on the floor laughing while writing for the sitcom Buck House
Why he took his name off the credits in series two
How mega-hit Gliding On was initially rejected by state television, and why the show later became so popular
The genesis of play turned movie Middle Age Spread
The joy of writing for the very topical and fast turn-around satire Spin Doctors
Trying to bribe his way out of a visit to Uganda in Intrepid Journeys
Getting dumped in the Nile while on a rafting trip

This video was first uploaded on 22 February 2011, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside

It was a stage play, and then I offered it to television, and it was turned on the grounds that this is not really sitcom material.
– Roger Hall on how Gliding On, one of New Zealand's most successful sitcoms, was rejected the first time around

Roger's Full Profile