Fable flips to put ‘underdogs on top’ Kiwi Josh Thomson has worked as a comedian, an actor and a current affairs host. Now he’s got Monkey business to deal with. reports.
Glenn McConnell
It’s a display of physicality. The studio holds punching bags, yoga mats and very fit actors. They jostle and jump, perform sensational fight scenes and spend too much time in the gym.
It is a new experience for comedian Josh Thomson.
His role as Pigsy in The New Legends of Monkey involved the development of his own martial art, which he calls ‘‘brawling’’.
‘‘It is suited well to a less athletic man, but I think I may look like a wally,’’ he says, ahead the show’s premiere.
‘‘For some reason I look ridiculous doing this at all times. The others were incredible, Monkey is flipping around, limbs going all the time, but I look like a guy trying to not fall over.’’
Despite his self-deprecating humour, Thomson really did work incredibly hard in the lead-up to filming. He was seeing a personal trainer, practising his high kicks, and spending early mornings at the gym.
‘‘I did everything I could,’’ he recalls.
‘‘This was a dream job.’’ For the comedian, it was an unusual job, too. It’s a martial arts show at its heart, an adaptation of the 1970s Japanese television show Monkey Magic.
But readapting this age-old tale has been tricky. The production had to live up to the children’s favourite and even the earlier 16th-century story it was based on. Because of the show’s origins, they faced heavy criticism from people who were angry about the show taking a traditional Chinese fable and filming it in New Zealand without any Chinese stars.
While the world’s entertainment press debated the rights and wrongs of retelling traditional stories a world away from where they had been constructed, in Auckland, Thomson and his co-stars were working themselves to the bone, still excited by the chance to work on this mystical television programme.
Thomson performs alongside an international cast, including Chai Hansen as protagonist Monkey and Emilie Cocquerel as the devilish Sandy.
The show will be just as far reaching as its cast. Commissioned jointly by ABC in Australia, TVNZ and Netflix, literally anyone could end up spending their nights watching this locally produced reboot.
Filmed at Auckland’s Kumeu Studios, the production is packed with Kiwis. There’s Thomson of Timaru, Luciane Buchanan as Tripitaka, Jarred Blakiston and Josh McKenzie.
The director, Gerard Johnstone, another Kiwi, is the man behind shows such as Terry Teo and Housebound.
His work on Teo seems to have played in his favour for this latest project, as a children’s classic turns into a multifaceted production with some subtle more adult humour combined with a story that carries a punch. The Legend of Monkey is more than a battle between clear cut goodies and baddies, as seemingly traitorous demigods are compelled to fight for good.
Characters such as Tripitaka and Monkey spend time traipsing the bush behind Kumeu Studio, an industriallooking complex in the middle of West Auckland farmland and forest.
At times, the show can seem almost comically familiar. Monkey emerges in front of ponga ferns asking, ‘‘Where am I?’’ And Thomson, as well as other local actors, never drop the voices they’ve become so well known for, creating a melting pot of accents delivering the lines.
The New Legends of Monkey, they say, is meant to be set in its own world. It’s not a New Zealand show, or even a Chinese show, despite that being where the story came from. The producers want this show to take on its own space, but that hasn’t gone down well with many critics.
In the middle of production, the cast and crew were met with fierce criticism. People petitioned to have the production stopped, they asked Netflix to pull the show altogether. Where was the diversity, they asked.
‘‘I’ve always wanted, since I was like 7, to be in a martial arts series. As much as I’d wanted to, I had given up this dream.’’ Josh Thomson