Journey for Three
This National Film Unit dramatised doco was boosterism for postwar immigration to New Zealand. Three Brits (Margaret, Cassie, Harry) travel and settle down under and the film records their hopes, jobs (nurse, factory worker, engineer), challenges (accents, 'casual' work ethic, locals wary of the ‘Poms’) and adventures in the new country (tramping, skiing, milk bars, the races, romance). Partaking in a glacier rescue raises Harry's spirits and assimilates him with the blokes. The film was released theatrically in the UK, and was scored by Douglas Lilburn.
The South Tonight - 1975 Final Episode
Former presenter Derek Payne returns to front the finale of this first (NZBC) run of the Otago-Southland local news show. A report on strippers aside, the emphasis in this ‘best of’ series cull is on (often Pythonesque) humour. Highlights include Kevin Ramshaw’s Sam Spade-style private eye hunting Noddy, Payne walking a famous imaginary dog, a search for news in Invercargill and a reporters’ bloopers reel. An era when newsroom staff were learning their medium in the public eye is evoked, and the opening weather report is a glorious look back at TV’s lo-tech past.
Joe and Koro - High Society
In the 1970s Yorkshire emigre Craig Harrison turned the odd couple tale of a Māori and a Yorkshireman into a novel, a radio play, and this popular sitcom. Joe (Stephen Gledhill) is the nervy, university-educated librarian; his flatmate is city-raised Koro (Rawiri Paratene, in one of his earliest lead roles) who works in a fish and chip shop. In this episode, Koro’s dodgy homemade wine helps inspire embarrassing scenes at a party of Joe’s friends. Among drunkard Pākehā, watch out for a paralytic Kevin J Wilson, and a rare pre-Pork Pie appearance by Claire Oberman.
The Evening Paper
Early teleplay The Evening Paper had the same rigid (theatre or radio-derived) format as other early TV dramas of the 60s, but it did something never before seen on local screens. Written by playwright Bruce Mason, the drama dared to expose a stifling NZ suburban existence. Jaded visiting Pom, Phillip; snivelling Winsome and her domineering mother Elfrida, and passive father Ernest, proved too much for viewers, who decried the drama as inaccurate and "unfair"; in other words, The Evening Paper gave Kiwis their first on-screen dose of cultural cringe.
Jonathan Hardy
Wellington-born Jonathan Hardy, who died in July 2012, was an actor for more than four decades. Along the way he was on stage in New Zealand, Australia and England, and on screen in Kiwi classic The Scarecrow and a run of Australian projects. Hardy also co-wrote Constance and Aussie classic Breaker Morant, in the process becoming the first New Zealander to be nominated for a scriptwriting Academy Award.