Television
A biopic of the Dance Exponents’ first decade is a story of friendship and have might have been.
The trend for true stories continues in the new batch of Sunday Theatre telemovies and, for a nice change, the season begins with something other than murder and mayhem.
The Exponents: Why Does Love? (TVNZ 1, Sunday, 8.30pm) is a nostalgia trip for anyone who came of age in the 1980s or 90s. Or anyone who’s been to a rugby game. Or anyone who listens to the radio. Okay, everyone.
It’s a biopic of the first 10 years of one of our beloved local bands, the Dance Exponents – now the Exponents – whose music has been the soundtrack of fun times from Bluff to the Cape.
It’s a woulda-coulda-shoulda sort of story – perhaps they could have been an international success – but it’s also a story about love and friendship, in particular between lead singer Jordan Luck and bass player Dave Gent.
The grungy early days in Christchurch are recreated, when Luck stood out with his bleached hair and penchant for kilt-wearing. The band quickly cadge a residency at the Aranui Hotel and are signed by Mike Chunn. Their first single, Victoria, is a hit; an album and overseas tours beckon.
But there are stumbles along the way and the band is challenged by “different aspirations”, says producer Carmen Leonard.
“Jordan went down his own path,” says Leonard. “He was happy to be in Lumsden and Dave wanted to go to London. He drank a lot, you’ll see that in the film, although that wasn’t a focus for us – really, it’s a love story between those two. They broke up and the song Why Does Love? really brought them back together.”
The biopic is also the equivalent of an album of rarities and out-takes: the soundtrack features recordings that have never been heard before.
“Adam Holt, who is now the big boss at Universal Music,
literally went through their old drawers and found old tapes and demos,” says Leonard.
“Except when they record Victoria in the studio, all the jamming and playing in the house is not the original.”
Jordan Mooney (above, centre), who plays Luck, does sing a couple of times and he and the rest of the actors who portray Gent, drummer Michael Harallambi and guitarists Brian Jones and Chris Sheehan have got the band’s approval: “For Jordan, it’s kind of confronting,” says Leonard, “but they loved it. They’re such a humble group of people, I think there were surprised that anyone really cared about making a film about them.”