Standing Room Only for Sunday 7 August 2016

12:16  Life at the National Film Unit

Part 2 of our look back at the output of the National Film Unit as it marks its 75th anniversary this month.  It was sold off in 1990, leaving behind a vast archive of films, documentaries, tv dramas and newsreels.  Last week we looked at that output and the Unit's considerable legacy.  This week Lynn Freeman talks with some of many people who worked the behind and in front of the camera - people like directors Hugh Macdonald and Sam Pillsbury, editor Catherine Isaac, and first, cameraman Lynton Diggle...

Thanks to Archives New Zealand.   Nga Taonga Sound and Vision will be screening National Film Unit material from the 17th of August to the 3rd of September and NZ on Screen launches its new look NFU collection later this month.

 

12:50  Tim Finn's hit musical The Ladies in Black

If you've been to to Broadway, or London's West End, you'll know that most of the big hits today are musicals.  So when Australia's prestigious Helpmann Awards gave the gong for Best New Australian Work to the hit musical Ladies in Black, it wasn't a big surprise. Except that all the creators of this show happen to be New Zealanders...  Simon Morris talks to writer Carolyn Burns, director Simon Phillips and songwriter - and the man who inspired the show -  Tim Finn.   are definitely ours.  Ladies in Black is based on a novel about the women who graced Sydney's top department store in the 1950s.

1:10 At The Movies

This week - Jason Bourne, Lights out and Free in deed.

1:34 The actor's F Word - "failure"

Failure is part and parcel of an actor's life - at auditions, at the hands of reviewers, when a TV series or a movie bombs with the audience. British actor David Harewood has had his fair share of successes, in TV shows like Homeland and Supergirl - he's also in the New Zealand co-production Free in Deed. On stage and screen he's played roles as varied as Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Friar Tuck in Robin Hood. But he's also missed out on countless audition, and had times when he couldn't afford mortgage payments over the years.  Lynn Freeman talks to David about his new TV documentary called The F Word, in which he discusses the emotional toll of his own failures, and talks to colleagues like Damien Lewis (Homeland) and Olivia Coleman(Broadchurch).

1:45 The real Bully Hayes

The flamboyant Captain William Henry 'Bully' Hayes was a  'thief, pirate, plunderer and kidnapper' according to newspaper headlines of the time and in subsequent books and movies. But what's the true story of this Pacific maritime legend? In her new book The notorious Captain Hayes, nautical historian and writer Joan Druett has investigated the fact and fiction surrounding Bully Hayes.  As Lynn Freeman finds out, he was accused of everything from bigamy and slavery to theft and murder.

 

 

2:06 The Laugh Track

Actor (800 words, The Great Maiden's Blush) and director (Mating in Captivity) Renee Lyons picks comedy favourites Felicity Ward, Sarah Pascoe, John Cleese and Anjelah Johnson.

2:25 Pasifika playwright Victor Rodger

Victor Rodger is sending out a challenge to other Pasifika writers. Where's the PI book that a nui generation will cherish? He's written an essay for the Academy of New Zealand Literature, talking about how much Albert Wendt's trail-blazing novel Sons For The Return Home meant to him as a teenage Samoan student in the 1980s. These days Victor's based in Dunedin as Otago University's Burns Fellow - the first of Samoan descent in its long history.  He's re-written his 2002 play Ranters-tantrum and is working on two new scripts. Lynn Freeman talks to him about his aim to encourage more Pasifika writing.

 

2:38  Australian Children's Laureate Leigh Hobbs

Writer and illustrator Leigh Hobbs is using his two year stint as Australia's Children's Laureate to promote libraries, which he worries are under threat. Over twenty years of writing children's books, he's created characters including  Old Tom, Mr Chicken and Horrible Harriet which have found an international market. Leigh is heading to New Zealand this month as a guest speaker at the 'International Board on Books for Young People' Congress, being held here for the first time in 70 years,  Lynn Freeman asked Leigh about his fears for the future of libraries - and not just in Australia:

2:48  Constable's Hay Wain - live!

Two New Zealanders - an artist and a curator - are among the team working on a project that's a tribute to one of British painter John Constable's most famous paintings. The Haywain depicted Willy Lott's Cottage in Suffolk, with a cart and horse by the river in the soft light of early summer. Now artist Cat Auburn is working with fellow-Kiwi, curator Sarah McClintock, British artist Estella Castle and the British National Trust to carefully recreate the scene, complete with people, animals and cart.  Cat Auburn told Lynn Freeman that she and Estella visited the National Gallery in London in search of a painting that could be revisited.

3:06 Drama at 3

Part 3 of Wulfsyarn, and another nostalgic episode of crime series Kiwi noir.