This Spotlight collection features classic interviews with international music stars visiting NZ. The clips are all from legendary Sunday night music show Radio with Pictures. See The Clash in 1982 with Dylan Taite, David Bowie (twice), plus Lou Reed, Billy Bragg, the Pogues, Joni Mitchell, and M...

The primetime current affairs interview is the heavyweight contest of screen broadcasting. They can woo hearts and minds, speak truth to power, turn elections, end strikes, enrage or reveal subjects and enshrine or tarnish reputations. This collection puts the Spotlight on iconic Kiwi contributio...

In this RWP interview, Karyn Hay gets Split Enz members Neil Finn and Nigel Griggs to explain some of the band's songs before a January 1983 performance at festival Sweetwaters. Both are tired of doing True Colours tracks; the album "has followed us around like a bad smell for a year and a half" says Finn. He also admits 'I Got You' was "probably only about the third lyric I'd ever written", and touches on the BBC banning of 'Six Months in a Leaky Boat'. Griggs admits he has no idea what Finn's 'History Never Repeats' is about; Finn praises Griggs' "incredibly good bass riff" on 'Lost for Words'.

In this clip from music show CV, young interviewer Robert Rakete breaks out his bass guitar for a jam with the king of the blues. Visiting New Zealand in November 1989 as part of U2's Lovetown tour, BB King sits down to talk about the value of "policing yourself" and paying your dues. Taking up the invitation to name some names, he lists a range of musical influences (the single string blues of T-Bone Walker made him go "crazy") and enthuses about some of those met along the way — from the "good at heart" Elvis Presley, to the positivity of U2. BB King passed away in May 2015.

The day after attending a fiery public debate (see video above) over Africa's threatened boycotts of the 1976 Montreal Olympics, Abraham Ordia, then-president of the African Council of Sport, sat down for a more subdued interview with Gordon Dryden. Ordia had arrived in New Zealand that week, hoping to convince Robert Muldoon to limit sporting contacts with apartheid South Africa. The PM refused to see him. Ordia recalls his Nigerian childhood, studying psychiatry in Zurich under Carl Jung, and makes a final plea to the viewer’s conscience on the issue at hand.

This 2013 Sunday item sees Garth Bray interviewing veteran Coronation Street actor William Roache, and being shown around the Manchester set. After defending Coro actor Michael Le Vell (later acquitted of sex abuse charges), Roache made headlines for comments that appeared to partially blame victims. He argues that people who are aware they are "pure love" won't become victims, but adds that events in our past lives can factor in. Roache later apologised for any offence caused. Two months later he faced charges of rape and indecent assault. He was found not guilty on all counts.

In this short Gallery interview — broadcast in June 1973 — Peace Media representative (and future TVNZ news boss) Bill Ralston talks about dwindling supplies for two private vessels that had left Aotearoa, to protest upcoming French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll. Ralston accuses Prime Minister Norman Kirk of being “a little bit heartless” for not assisting. Actually Kirk was realising plans for the HMNZS Otago to join the vigil. Protest yacht Fri was later stormed by French commandos, and the protests made world news. French nuclear testing in the Pacific finally ceased in 1996.

This short Auckland-shot Holly Hunter interview for arts show The Edge was filmed as The Piano was released in NZ cinemas in 1993. Hunter discusses playing a cheerleader murderer, and alongside Tom Cruise in The Firm. When weighing up past films she cherishes Raising Arizona and Broadcast News, but The Piano is “the most original story that I've been involved in”, and Jane Campion, “one of the great directors.” In March 1994 Hunter would win an Oscar for Best Actress (alongside Anna Paquin for Best Supporting Actress and Campion for Best Original Screenplay).

John Kirk, son of the late prime minister Norman Kirk, is Brian Edwards’ interviewee in this episode from a series featuring the children of famous parents. While undeniably proud of his father, he pulls few punches in describing how his family suffered from the often negative attentions of others, and the demands placed on Big Norm which competed with his role as a husband and father — and may ultimately have contributed to his early death. Kirk was an MP representing his father’s seat of Sydenham, but his political career would not be as illustrious.

This Weekly Review features: An interview with Sir Peter Buck in which Te Rangi Hīroa (then Medical Officer of Health for Maori) explains the sabbatical he took to research Polynesian anthropology, a subject in which he would achieve international renown; Landscapes: The Lakes at Tūtira sets the stunning scenery of the Hawke's Bay lakes to verse by James Harris; finally Southern Alps: RNZAF Drops Building Materials hitches a ride on a Dakota full of building materials being parachuted in to workers at Mueller Hut on Mount Cook.