Skip to main content

DavidMcPhail

  • Writer
  • Actor
David_McPhail_Key_Profile.jpg

David McPhail was a pioneering figure in the history of Kiwi TV comedy. Working alongside Jon Gadsby, his longtime comic partner in crime, he impersonated Sir Rob Muldoon in landmark sketch shows A Week of It and McPhail & Gadsby. Later McPhail starred in the Barry Crump-style yarns of Letter to Blanchy, and as an alarmingly straight-talking teacher in Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby. He died overnight on 14 May 2021. 

Screenography

2021 Subject Short film
2019 Subject Television
Presentiment
2017 As: Dr Adam Nicholson Short film

Biography

David McPhail impersonated nuns, politician Roger Douglas, and singer Tina Turner. But it was his take on former prime minister Sir Robert Muldoon that sealed his place in Kiwi popular culture — reducing, in the words of writer Steve Braunias, "the most terrifying man in New Zealand" to a goblin-sized joke. 

Awards

2008 Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit
For services to television and theatre

1999 SPADA Screen Industry Award (New Zealand Screen Production and Development Association)
Champion Award

“When I proposed it to some of my superiors, they thought I was insane ... I was told quite frankly by one, 'you have to understand, David. You're young and you're energetic but you don't know the facts of life, and one of the facts of life is New Zealanders do not have a sense of humour. They are very, very staunch sensible people and they don't like laughing, and they don't like laughing at themselves.'”

David McPhail on trying to get comedy show A Week of It off the ground, in his extended interview for 2019 TV series Funny As: The Story of New Zealand Comedy

Related images

Peter_Coates_Gallery_2.jpg
The Producers' Course of 1970. From left, back row: Peter Sharp, ?, Donald Hope Evans, Wayne Tourell, Alan Lyne, John Whitwell, Michael Noonan, and Bob Blair. Front: David McPhail, Peter Coates, Roy Melford, Murray Reece and Mike Mune.
Kindly supplied by Peter Coates
Letter-to-Blanchy-Gallery-3.jpg
Derek (David McPhail) tries on politics: a shot from TV series Letter to Blanchy
Letter-to-Blanchy-Gallery-4.jpg
The main characters from TV series Letter to Blanchy: from left to right Barry (Jon Gadsby), Ray (Peter Rowley) and Derek (David McPhail)
Amazing-Extraordinary-Friends---Gallery-4.jpg
A publicity image for The Amazing Extraordinary Friends. From left, The Green Termite (David McPhail), Wired (Robyn Maclean), Captain X (Carl Dixon), and Nitelite (Patrick Morrison).
Kindly provided by Greenstone TV
Amazing-Extraordinary-Friends---Gallery-3.jpg
From left to right: Wired (Robyn Maclean), The Green Termite (David McPhail), Captain X (Carl Dixon) and Nitelite (Patrick Morrison) in The Amazing Extraordinary Friends.
Kindly provided by Greenstone TV