New drama looks at schoolboy rugby.
Head High, a new drama series focusing on New Zealand’s national game, mirrors events in the sport at college level. Kerry Harvey reports.
Two former Shortland Street favourites are kicking goals in the new rugby drama Head High.
The six-part series is one of a select group of prime-time dramas in nearly six decades of local TV to have a M ori family at its heart.
Mana and Tai (Shortland Street’s Jayden Daniels and Lionel Wellington) are chasing their dreams of rugby stardom through playing in low-decile Southdown College’s First XV. The pair have the full support of their police officer mum Renee (Miriama McDowell), their little sister Aria (Te Ao o Hinepehinga Rauna) and – most of all – their stepdad and coach, Vince O’Kane (A Place To Call Home’s Craig Hall).
In a ripped-fromthe-headlines twist, their world is turned upside down when the coach from Southdown’s biggest rivals in the college rugby competition, the exclusive private school St Isaac’s, tries to poach both Vince and Tai.
The fallout challenges all involved and reveals – just like many Kiwi families – the O’Kanes’ struggles with problems ranging from drugs and alcohol to teen pregnancy and financial woes.
Daniels and Wellington – who played cousins Curtis Hannah and Leroy Raumati on Shortland Street – believe Head High is something special.
Wellington, 19, can barely contain his enthusiasm for the show and says viewers will be very surprised when they meet Tai, a cocky, confident, wannabe ladies man who wants the luxurious life with the rich girl in the rich area.
“There’s no plaits, the chubby cheeks have gone.
I’ve looked at a photo of me when I was on Shorty and if I try to compare
Leroy and Tai, they’re two totally different people.
“If they (viewers) are expecting to see Leroy, they’re going to be definitely taken aback,” he says.
“We’re definitely touching on some sensitive topics in regards to drugs and alcohol and even teen pregnancy.”
Meanwhile, Daniels is relishing being part of such a Maori-centric production.
“So many times you go for auditions and me and my friends would all be going for the same role but when we got to this, I saw Lionel and Byron Repia (who plays Head High’s Christian).
“I thought, ‘Same old again’ but we were all going for different roles,” he says, adding Mana’s background is similar, in some ways, to his own.
“It’s my kind of class, this family. I think everyone is on the same page and the directors have so much care, there’s so much heart in it and nothing is brushed over.”
Although Ferndale’s Curtis Hannah had – and still has – a huge fan base, Daniels is enjoying the opportunity to show a different side of his character as the more stoic and level-headed Mana.
“I always just pull stuff from myself and heighten it, so for Curtis I just tapped into my angry, hotheaded side whereas Mana has bits of that but more of my level-headed side and my more reserved side,” he says.
Daniels is also relieved he ignored his initial concern that, as a 26-year-old father of two, he was too old to play a college boy and went to the audition anyway.
“I didn’t think I’d be able to pull it off so I nearly didn’t go for the audition,” he says.
“I’d been getting heaps of auditions that I felt too young for or too old for and had a couple for 17 year olds and the feedback was I was too old.”
However, there is one more worry – it’s one he shares with Wellington – and that’s the ability to look convincing on the rugby field.
“I was too unco-ordinated to play rugby, especially at this level,” says Daniels. “I played rugby until I was about 10 but even then I wasn’t destined for that life.”
“We’re definitely touching on some sensitive topics in regards to drugs and alcohol.”
– Lionel Wellington