New Year gong for Crump’s Scotty
Veteran broadcasters Lloyd Scott and Philip Sherry, and artist Lisa Reihana, are among those in the arts honoured.
Earlier this year, if you’d told Lloyd Scott he’d be made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, he would have thought you were crazy.
But when the broadcaster and actor found out that as of the New Year 2018 Honours ceremony he will be Lloyd Scott, MNZM, he believed it.
What brought him around to the idea was the reaction to his retirement. In August, Scott put in his final shift hosting RNZ’s All Night Programme, a job he’d been doing for the past 13 years.
‘‘The response I got from listeners to my retirement was so supportive and came up with so much love, I suppose, that I suddenly feel maybe what I have been able to contribute is worth being recognised,’’ Scott said on the phone from Queenstown, where he’s spending the festive period with family.
‘‘Everybody made me feel that what I’d been doing had made a difference to their lives. That was an amazing feeling.’’
Scott has worked in radio since he was 21, a career spanning 53 years. But that’s not the only string to his bow.
He was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to broadcasting, theatre and television.
Scott’s television roles have included Shark in the Park and hosting after-school current affairs show The Video Dispatch in the early 1980s.
He’s perhaps best known, however, as ‘‘Scotty’’, rugged country man Barry Crump’s cityslicker sidekick from the ‘‘Crumpy and Scotty’’ Toyota ads. The ad series ran for 12 years and has become part of Kiwiana.
‘‘I loved doing those, and it gave me recognition, I suppose, as much as anything,’’ Scott said.
‘‘Suddenly they all took off and became really well known, and because they were well-written and well-made, and because I was lucky enough to be in it, it turned out to be a product that I could talk about and have conviction when I talked about it.’’
Scott has also acted in more than 80 theatre productions, including his favourite: a satire by Italian playwright Dario Fo called Accidental Death of an Anarchist. Scott performed in a production of the play directed by Phillip Mann for Wellington’s Downstage Theatre in 1981.
‘‘It does stand out for me as a particular production that I can be proud of. It was farcical, it had a lot of timing and things that were important.
‘‘There was a lot of silliness involved, and a huge amount of energy I found. Because of what Phil wanted us to do and wanted us to do, I found myself putting energy into it and him getting things out of me that I probably hadn’t exhibited in performances before that. I’ve always depended a bit on directors to help me, and this was a standout, I think. This was a really good one.’’
Though he’s enjoyed his time on stage and screen, Scott says radio has continued to be his favourite medium.
‘‘A [theatre] audience that laughs is a wonderful, wonderful sound and also if you can get reactions like sighs or gasps from an audience on stage as well. But I still think that radio is my favourite medium. Maybe that’s because it’s what I first got into when I started my career. But not only that, I just think it’s a wonderful medium, it’s a personal medium that can get right into the heart of each person in a different way.’’
Another with an equally long broadcast track record to be honoured with an MNZM is former newsreader Philip Sherry. Sherry worked for the NZBC, TV3 and Radio New Zealand, and was nicknamed ‘‘Mr Credibility’’ for his presenting style.
Sherry began in local Wellington radio, before going abroad to Canada, the UK, the Netherlands and Switzerland before embarking on a long newsreading career on TV2, TV3 and various radio stations. He then had a later life career in local body politics and briefly as a Christian Heritage list MP.
Artist Lisa Reihana will be made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to art.
The honour tops off a big year for Reihana in which she took her video work In Pursuit of Venus [infected] to the Venice Biennale, where it represented New Zealand.
But when asked about which parts of her work she’s most proud, Reihana spoke about her work as a teacher and advocate.
‘‘I think a lot of the work I’ve done working on art boards and community boards but I think advocacy [is what I’m most proud of]. It’s kind of a quiet thing but it’s really important,’’ she said.
Reihana taught for 25 years and said she derives a lot of satisfaction from seeing students go on to do ‘‘good things’’.
‘‘I think that aspect is truly gratifying. I didn’t have children of my own so I was able to put energy into that work.
‘‘You know that you change people’s lives. Good teachers change everything. Those things are probably not so well known about but that’s what I’ve really enjoyed about the work I’ve done over the years.’’
Reihana said she had to give some thought to whether to accept the honour.
‘‘It was quite surprising. And then it was like, do you do it or do you not do it?’’ she said. Part of what convinced her was a presentation hosted by Auckland iwi Nga¯ ti Wha¯ tua, where she saw five Ma¯ ori Dames together on stage. ‘‘I was thinking about how inspiring it was sitting in a room with the five of them.’’
She hopes her New Zealand Order of Merit membership will enable her to advocate more effectively for art, for artists and for Ma¯ ori. As part of her research for her Venice Biennale exhibition, Reihana studied Ma¯ ori leaders during the colonial era.
‘‘[I looked] at how people go ahead and they put themselves forward to advocate on behalf of others. And I think having been a teacher for 25 years and working in the tertiary arena and just being an advocate on behalf of the students ... that’s a job that never stops.
‘‘I still hear from ex-students saying ‘Can you help me get into an art school,’ or, ‘I’m looking to work in another country.’ So it’s another way to support not just yourself but others, in a manner that can be really useful.’’
Among others in the arts community who were honoured as officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
The chairman of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, businessman Donald Best;
The director of the Auckland Art Gallery, Rhana Devenport, who was previously director of New Plymouth’s Govett-Brewster Art Gallery;
The sculptor Frederick Graham, who served as an influential teacher, a leader of the Contemporary Maori Art Movement, has had major exhibitions abroad and whose work can be seen at the Auckland High Court and Wellington’s National Archives, among many other public sites;
Musician John Harrison, the long-serving executive officer of the NZ Brass Band Association, a volunteer at the Court Theatre and longstanding Radio NZ announcer and producer;
Journalist and publisher Nicola Legat, a former editor of Metro, who was the publishing director of Random House New Zealand, and is now publisher at Massey University Press, as well as serving as chair of the NZ Book Awards Trust and deputy chair of the Auckland Writers Festival;
Wetini Mitai-Ngatai, an
"Good teachers change everything. That's what I've really enjoyed about the work I've done over the years." Lisa Reihana
"Everybody made me feel that what I'd been doing had made a difference to their lives." Lloyd Scott
accomplished choreographer, kapa haka performer and founder of the Mitai Maori Village in Rotorua;
Versatile Christchurch visual artist Julia Morison, who works with painting, photography, sculpture and installation;
Artist and sculptor Helen Pollock, whose acclaimed recent work has focused on World War I ;
Actor, director, scriptwriter, journalist and Listener film critic Helene Wong, who last year published her autobiography Being Chinese: A New Zealander’s Story;
To become members of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
Music teacher, conductor and adjudicator Elise Bradley;
Renee Liang, who works as a paediatrician by day and a poet, playwright and fiction writer by night, and has particularly earned attention for her plays, including the Bone Feeder (with Gareth Farr) and Dominion Rd the Musical (with Jun Bin Lee).
John Gow and Gary Langsford, the founders of the noted Auckland art gallery, GowLangsford.