The Governor 2 - No Way to Treat A Lady (Episode Two)

Television (Full Length Episode) – 1977

She rides the horses while her husband rides the women...
– Lady Grey is given the English translation of an overheard comment in te reo

I can't live my life entirely at your convenience.
– Lady Eliza Grey (Judy Cleine) reacts after finally getting her husband to admit to his adulterydmits adultery

Do you expect to play the wronged husband and be taken seriously?
– Lady Eliza Grey (Judy Cleine), after her husband asks that she desist from flirting with Sir Henry Keppel (Ken Blackburn)

Confession may be good for your soul, but it does little for mine.
– Lady Eliza Grey (Judy Cleine) responds to her husband's reluctant admittance of his affair

Don't worry Captain Grey, I'll be called as soon as I'm needed. Children are born every day.
– The ship doctor isn't in any hurry to attend Lady Grey's labour pains

Poor Grey. I thought his career knew no bounds...the shining star of the colonies.
– Sir Henry Keppel (Ken Blackburn) reflects on the fall in fortunes of Sir George Grey

If Helen of Troy had a face that launched a thousand ships, Lady Grey managed the no mean feat of turning a ship around in mid-Atlantic.
– Excerpt from a short biography of Lady Grey, McGregor Village (South Africa) website

I feel numb...he takes his pleasures elsewhere. Oh Susan, what alternatives do we have, any of us?
– Lady Eliza Grey (Judy Cleine) reveals her pain to her friend Susan Pitt (Celia West)

So far I've not found one single redeeming feature in your choice of colony. Nor in the weather.
– Lady Eliza Grey (Judy Cleine) to her husband, after arriving in Auckland

A thigh with 10,000 years of Stone Age culture buried in it cannot be expected to heal overnight.
– Captain George Grey (Corin Redgrave) on being wounded by an Aboriginal spear

May we make a spectacle of ourselves, Miss Pitt?
– Edward Eyre (Jeremy Stephens) invites Susan Pitt (Celia West) to dance

In a civilised community nakedness is unnatural.
– Governor Grey (Corin Redgrave) instructs his adopted 'daughter' Ruihia (Makuini Menehira)on social niceties

The education system still perpetrated the myth of good Governor Grey, so you knew you were coming up against something that didn’t seem to be true. Because you were venturing into the characters’ private lives – because you have to with drama if you’re doing six episodes of something – you were going to get yourself into some contentious issues. But that’s what we were in the bloody business for.
– Writer Keith Aberdein on the controversies surrounding the subject matter of The Governor, in documentary The Making of the Governor

Judge Martin, is this occasion considered one of your civilisation's higher achievements?
– Rangatira Tāmati Wāka Nene (Napi Waaka) surveys the Governor's ball

Sir George remained in New Zealand for eight years as Governor, and during this time Lady Grey became very well known for her gracious qualities, and for the interest she took in church matters. They were recalled to England in 1853, and on arrival were immediately sent to Cape Colony.
– Writer 'Halstead' on Eliza Grey, The West Australian, 22 May 1934, page 3

...on the evidence of what I saw yesterday it looks very good. The episode which explores Grey's relationship with his wife Eliza is superb. The battle scenes are full of the tang of musketry and blood in the sun. The dialogue is believable and it sounds like the country I know. The acting is the best I've seen on New Zealand television ... they may have been showing us only the best bits.
– Writer Warwick Roger watches scenes from The Governor at an Avalon press screening, The Dominion, 3 September 1977

From incidents during the voyage there was to arise the briefly notorious Keppel Affair, details of which have remained impenetrably obscure to the present, despite frequent allusions in biographical studies ... of the two principals, one made some of the most intimate details of the matter the subject of public dispatches — and no man was more conscious that they would be material for future historians — while the other requested an official enquiry.
– Writer BJ Dalton on The Keppel Affair, dramatised at the end of this episode, Historical Studies issue 63, 1974