This debut episode of a not completely fictional series follows Wayne Anderson, “Manurewa’s greatest singer”, and his attempts to break out of the rest home circuit and find fame and fortune. Wayne dreams of taking the evergreen music of his idols Engelbert and Elvis to the world. But even his manager’s show business links  — he works in a video store  —  aren’t bringing in the 50 dollar gig needed each week. Things may be looking up with the best perm Wayne’s ever had, plus an audition in a Karangahape Road bar. As a non-driver, he will have to get there by bus.

Wayne Anderson is a man out of time. His three and a half octave voice and undying devotion to the “evergreens” of popular music (Elvis, Engelbert and Tom) should surely have seen him in Vegas by now. However, despite the best attempts of hapless manager Orlando, Wayne’s star has never ascended higher than the rather less lucrative Manurewa rest home circuit. The cameras follow him in his quest for a show business career – along with the perfect perm and hot pie – in a series where the boundary between fact and fiction is as elusive as that big break.

This end of season Sing special from 1975 takes place mostly in the Wild West. After some song and dance numbers and comedy, we meet two small-time crooks: Lone Wolf (Ray Woolf) and Crazy D (Laurie Dee). A musical showdown at the saloon ensues — featuring a Tom Jones medley — before a bungled bank robbery brings down the burglars. The performers include Craig Scott, Chic Littlewood, Angela Ayers and George Tumahai (who shows Woolf how to hongi). The show also contains a rare clip from A Going Concern, an early NZ soap of which no known episodes survive.

A hunter heads home, to add his latest catch to an extensive wall of animal trophies. Then he sets about making some music. But things do not go to plan: with a mouse loose in the building, the chase is on. The third film by Kiwi king of the kooky, director Grant Lahood was nominated for Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival, and took away a special technical award. It was also judged best short film at the 1993 NZ Film and Television Awards. The Singing Trophy was filmed at Kahutara Taxidermy museum in the Wairarapa.

Continuing the Shortland Street tradition of packing surprises into its Christmas cliffhangers, the 2013 finale featured kidney transplants, mad doctors, marriage talk for Chris and Rachel, and this unexpected antidote to all the drama: a cast singalong of Mutton Birds classic 'Anchor Me', led by Chris on guitar. Actor Michael Galvin was hardly new to matters musical. In 1990 he won acclaim for a singing/acting role in play Blue Sky Boys. Being Shortland, this moment of tentative bonding as the sun set on the Warner family bach was unlikely to last. Downstairs, a bomb was ticking... 

Sing featured Kiwi entertainers performing popular songs and musical standards, accompanied by a bevy of dancers. The performers included Craig Scott, Ray Woolf, Angela Ayers, Chic Littlewood and musical comic relief Laurie Dee. The hair was big and the collars large, while songs tended towards the middle of the road — for example 'Love is All Around', Tom Jones and Glen Campbell.

This impressionistic 1989 short film, directed by Mark Summerville, imagines gay tribal life on a fantasy South Pacific Island. Shot by Mairi Gunn, the film ripples with watery blues; a stormy Maggie Rankin soundtrack and whispered narration (from Ivan Davis) backgrounds images of marine sirens, coral crowns, apples, tapa, and entwined seaweed. In the middle of it all — a game of underwater hockey... The short film crossed the seas to gay film festivals in San Francisco, Vancouver and Hamburg, and toured with a British Film Institute selection of shorts.

In April 2011, singer Tiki Taane was handcuffed, arrested and spent a night in the cells after performing a number by American rappers NWA as police visited his performance at Tauranga’s Illuminati club. The charges were later dropped and Taane remained resolutely unapologetic. This defiant song, recorded a month later at the same venue, is his musical response to the ordeal. Armed only with an acoustic guitar — the protest singer’s weapon of choice — he asserts his refusal to be silenced while firing a broadside at police, the media and politicians.

This black and white performance music video is taken from  debut album Live at Bats (2004), back when the plan was for the Fly My Pretties ensemble to be a one-off project. Written and sung by Age Pryor — with vocal help from Tessa Rain — the gentle folk song is enhanced by simple but effective shooting, and attentive use of split-screen editing. The track was recorded in Wellington's Bats Theatre.

Bressa Creeting Cake's jaunty calypso romp, described by the band as "a very happy holiday song full of gaiety, summer, and love for one's fellows", gets a suitably madcap treatment in this video directed by Michael Keating and band member Edmund McWilliams (aka Ed Cake). Actor and comedian Jonathan Brugh (What We Do in the Shadows) gets to mug for the camera while the band lurks in the background in their "sinister suits". Auckland's Little Shoal Bay, near the Harbour Bridge, is the opening location, and elsewhere, a guitar is used as a percussion instrument.