About Face - Danny and Raewyn

Danny and Raewyn was generally thought-provoking and refreshingly understated. If ever it was doubted that the wisest way to spend the television dollar is to make programmes about New Zealanders for New Zealanders, Danny and Raewyn should remove such doubts.

– Reviewer Libby Young in The NZ Herald, 12 August 1986

...these are the kind of people, and the kind of places which tend to go unmentioned in our drama. I wanted a working class suburb of Auckland, the dreams that exist there, and the tensions. I wanted a drama which was infused with reality. So the style of acting and the dialogue in Danny and Raewyn is realism and in its visual style, it’s docudrama.

– Director Gregor Nicholas on Danny and Raewyn, in the About Face press kit

We packed into this cockroach-filled flat in Kingsland. It was crawling with fleas and had to be bombed before we could get in there . . . it was for me quite special. I’d done a variety of roles previously but for this one I didn’t even wear make-up. It was bare bones stuff. And emotional? …I watched ‘Danny and Raewyn’ after it was all finished and I got this little jolt in my chest. I thought then: “Wow, to get that kind of feeling from it means something”. It was the first time I’d watched myself and gor an emotional message.

– Jennifer Ward-Lealand on playing Raewyn, in the press kit for About Face

...it's the same old story. I talked. That's the trouble really — I talk and talk, and he takes less and less notice…

– Raewyn (Jennifer Ward-Lealand) on her trouble with partner Danny (Peter Stewart), in part one

Shame they don't do divorce cakes. There'd be heaps of demand.

– Trish (Sylvia Rands) jokes with friend Raewyn (Jennifer Ward-Lealand), in part one

Things can't go on as they are, that's for sure.

– Raewyn (Jennifer Ward-Lealand) opens up to her friend Trish (Sylvia Rands), early in part two

About Face was a hard-won vehicle for a new generation of angry young filmmakers, frustrated at the dearth of outlets and determined to prove that there was a market for new visions in New Zealand, especially if they were appropriately packaged. As a strategy it was certainly successful. By the time About Face was offered to local viewers, the series had made tow significant sales, one to America’s PBS and the other to England’s Channel 4.

– Trisha Dunleavy in her book Ourselves in Primetime: A History of Television Drama in New Zealand, page 180

Danny and Raewyn did not take us anywhere. It was not meant to. Nor was it meant to be comfortable. But it did accurately and realistically convey a picture of a mini-tragedy totally representative of our times. It must have struck a very responsive chord in lots of homes where the problems of a marriage gone sour in the pressures of just surviving have countless parallels. It was very well directed and the performances of the principals exactly right . . . Director writer Gregor Nicholas on this showing has the potential to make contemporary television drama that is relevant to New Zealand viewers.

– TV reviewer Barry Shaw on Danny and Raewyn, The Auckland Star, 11 August 1986

I stayed up the other night to watch the Sunday horrors, and found I couldn’t change channels from a New Zealand play, Danny and Raewyn — the best television surprise I’ve had in a long time. It was realistic and above all, believable — a far cry from what I’ve become used to from TVNZ attempts in this area…

– A letter to the editor from 'Dissatisfied, Northcote', The Auckland Star, 20 August 1986

 You know why? It's cause you never go near him!

– Raewyn (Jennifer Ward-Lealand) reacts to her partner's claim that his child has no interest in him