NZ shows to bust the blues
As we scour the supermarket shelves for the basics, loitering in the aisles to ask each other ‘‘What’s your dhal recipe, Darl?’’, the good news is that the prohibitive price of cheese is doing wonders for our cholesterol levels.
Add that to the many knock-on effects of the pandemic/inflation Russia/Ukraine wartime blues as we prepare to possibly live out the apocalyptic final chapters of Nevil Shute’s On the Beach, that 50s novel about a group of Melburnians waiting for radiation to blow over after a nuclear war.
‘‘Come on, it’s not that bad,’’ you say as we rush to the NZ SeaRise website to see how soon our shacks will sink under water. Meanwhile, we are bombarded by endless neurotic political polls, taken more frequently than a post-op patient’s blood pressure, even though we’re 18 months out from the election.
What we need is some entertainment to cheer ourselves up, possibly a heart-rending interpretation by local soul singer Tami Neilson, of Vera Lynn’s hope-for-tomorrow anthem The White Cliffs of Dover. Instead we have to content ourselves with the eighth lame season of Dancing with the Stars, which, after the exit of the show’s first same-sex dancing couple, lost whatever oomph it had.
Perhaps we should get copycat creative and make our own version of Netflix’s hugely popular Bridgerton and set it in Hawke’s Bay, or Merivale, Christchurch, even though the suburb of Merivale doesn’t date back far enough to warrant period costume. How perfect Hawke’s Bay would be to stage any of Jane Austen’s greatest hits – Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, or Persuasion.
No need for us to wait for the latest screen iteration of an Austen or Bronte classic to make its way off the supply boats from Britain, however. Let’s do our own versions, made on stunning locations and harnessing local talent.
It’s not only acting agencies we could consult for the casting. To follow Dancing with the Stars’ example, why not shoulder-tap broadcasters and journalists? Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking would make a credible Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre, with Today FM’s Tova O’Brien as the governess and Kate Hawkesby (also Newstalk ZB) as the wife locked up in the attic. Or why not, in the spirit of TV cross-channel conviviality, cast AM’s Ryan Bridge as Rochester and the Breakfast show’s Matt McLean as the governess?
Too much of a stretch you say? All right, substitute Bridge with Mark Richardson, or enlist the acting greats of hermit kingdom productions to fill the roles, veteran Sam Neill as Mr R and Thomasin McKenzie as Jane Eyre.
You have to agree that countless rugged South Island locales are tailor-made for Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, that passionate novel of class and destructive love originally set in the wilds of the Yorkshire moors. I’m thinking a co-production between Creative NZ and the Tourism Board, with Wuthering Heights NZ lending itself to a musical reworking featuring Lorde (channelling Kate Bush) as Cathy, and Marlon Williams as Heathcliff.
In the absence of any pulsating romantic classic New Zealand equivalent of an Austen or a Bronte, why not unashamedly rip off the best of British and serve it back to them?
Let’s go counter-intuitive, to that oft-repeated dictum for Kiwi creatives to tell our stories about ourselves. If it resonates with audiences, next stop a Kiwi Dr Who against the stunning backdrop of the International Dark Sky reserve in the Mackenzie Country.
This blatant inequality, this persistent dismissal of the Palestinian desire for statehood . . . makes it impossible to achieve peace.