Aroha Bridge - Series One

All we need is a heartbreaking story that the nation will love!

– Kowhai (Jessica Hansell) decides to enter the band in a talent show, in episode six

We need to be on the scene. The only time we meet people is in this dairy.

– Kowhai (Jessica Hansell), in episode 10

Aroha Bridge manages to walk the delicate tightrope that only brilliantly pitched satire can. Taking actual painful ugly realities and mining them for laughs.

– Writer Alex Behan in The NZ Herald, 25 July 2019

Obviously, there are shards of my family in there, but I think everybody kind of has some of these people in their family — the staunch separatist uncle, or a really sports-obsessed aunty, the assimilation-friendly relative, and then there's the try-hard cousin ... I think we often get sold a commodified version of the New Zealand family that actually does us a bit of a disservice, because the typical New Zealand family is a hot mess.

– Aroha Bridge creator Jessica Hansell in The NZ Herald, 2 July 2016

Hmmm… a community hall with a known rat problem. 

– (0.40) Monty (Rizván Tu’itahi) isn't so sure about their first gig happening at the Aroha Bridge Arena in episode one

So, this is the Aroha Bridge Arts Centre. Poor people acting wealthy, wealthy people acting poor…

– (1.22) Kowhai (Jessica Hansell) surveys the crowd at the fine arts exhibition in episode four

Son, you need to listen to your sister. You've gotta harden up and dance fluidly and elegantly for a very strange French woman. Do you understand?

– (1.44) Dad (Frankie Stevens) gives Monty (Rizván Tu’itahi) a talking to after resisting dance classes in episode seven