Banksy's home in Queenstown
The Arts Hole owners Tom Roberts and Chani Caulfield with their son, Denali. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
A Queenstown couple believe their art gallery at Frankton's Country Lane is the only one in New Zealand with works by English street artist Banksy on the walls.
Tom Roberts and Chani Caulfield opened The Arts Hole in March as foundation tenants in the School House Studios — the relocated and restored former high school building and arts centre.
Roberts, who, like Banksy, grew up in the English city of Bristol, says he's long had a passion for street/urban art, and is a "huge fan" of Banksy's work.
The gallery also has "harder-to-find works" by other urban artists such as Invader and Blek Le Rat, he says.
"Urban art is pretty under-represented in Queenstown, so we're excited to be able to bring it here."
Roberts spent two years in the resort after emigrating to New Zealand in 2019.
He then lived in Wellington for two years, where he met Caulfield, a school teacher and ceramicist from the United States.
The couple, who're now permanent residents, decided to open The Arts Hole after having the "it's now or never" conversation, he says.
It's been a big step up from their online business of the same name, which they started in 2023 after a "crazy couple of years through the pandemic".
"I was working a high-level corporate operations role, and Chani was a fulltime senior teacher.
"We were both feeling largely underwhelmed, we had busy, stressful jobs and couldn't help but wonder if this was it.
"We wanted to change the direction of our lives, and start our own business, but not just any business, something we loved and were truly passionate about."
Although the online business was "ticking along", it wasn't earning enough to justify their full-time commitment, he says.
"So we had to make a call to either really invest in an online platform, or try and find a gallery space."
They heard about the School House Studios long before it opened, and were impressed by their landlords' support for small, independent businesses.
"They're recycling old buildings, and building something new.
"It's quite different and quirky, a bit more artisan, and a really good vibe."
As well as having Banksys on the walls, The Arts Hole has other original art, prints, ceramics and jewellery.
"We have work to suit every budget.
"We really wanted to create something different, not just with the work we have, but also a place where everyone's welcome, to bring some fun back into it and make art more accessible.
"We love helping new artists with interesting stories and a creative passion."
The couple also works with charities Youthline NZ and Protect Our Winters through the sale of some of their products, he says.
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Otago Daily Times
21 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Banksy's home in Queenstown
The Arts Hole owners Tom Roberts and Chani Caulfield with their son, Denali. PHOTO: SUPPLIED A Queenstown couple believe their art gallery at Frankton's Country Lane is the only one in New Zealand with works by English street artist Banksy on the walls. Tom Roberts and Chani Caulfield opened The Arts Hole in March as foundation tenants in the School House Studios — the relocated and restored former high school building and arts centre. Roberts, who, like Banksy, grew up in the English city of Bristol, says he's long had a passion for street/urban art, and is a "huge fan" of Banksy's work. The gallery also has "harder-to-find works" by other urban artists such as Invader and Blek Le Rat, he says. "Urban art is pretty under-represented in Queenstown, so we're excited to be able to bring it here." Roberts spent two years in the resort after emigrating to New Zealand in 2019. He then lived in Wellington for two years, where he met Caulfield, a school teacher and ceramicist from the United States. The couple, who're now permanent residents, decided to open The Arts Hole after having the "it's now or never" conversation, he says. It's been a big step up from their online business of the same name, which they started in 2023 after a "crazy couple of years through the pandemic". "I was working a high-level corporate operations role, and Chani was a fulltime senior teacher. "We were both feeling largely underwhelmed, we had busy, stressful jobs and couldn't help but wonder if this was it. "We wanted to change the direction of our lives, and start our own business, but not just any business, something we loved and were truly passionate about." Although the online business was "ticking along", it wasn't earning enough to justify their full-time commitment, he says. "So we had to make a call to either really invest in an online platform, or try and find a gallery space." They heard about the School House Studios long before it opened, and were impressed by their landlords' support for small, independent businesses. "They're recycling old buildings, and building something new. "It's quite different and quirky, a bit more artisan, and a really good vibe." As well as having Banksys on the walls, The Arts Hole has other original art, prints, ceramics and jewellery. "We have work to suit every budget. "We really wanted to create something different, not just with the work we have, but also a place where everyone's welcome, to bring some fun back into it and make art more accessible. "We love helping new artists with interesting stories and a creative passion." The couple also works with charities Youthline NZ and Protect Our Winters through the sale of some of their products, he says.
1News
21 hours ago
- 1News
Men who stole $10m golden toilet sentenced to prison terms
Two burglars who plotted the heist of a $6.4 million (NZ$10.6 million) golden toilet, a fully-functional 18-karat piece of contemporary art that was ripped from the plumbing of an English mansion, were sentenced today to more than two years in a British prison. The satirical commentary on consumer culture, titled 'America,' by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, had only been on display for a couple days when five burglars swiped it from Blenheim Palace — the country mansion where British wartime leader Winston Churchill was born — in September 2019. The purloined potty was never recovered and was believed to have been chopped up and sold. 'This bold and brazen heist took no more than 5 1/2 minutes to complete,' Judge Ian Pringle said in Oxford Crown Court. 'America has never been seen again.' James Sheen, 40, a roofer who pleaded guilty to burglary, conspiracy and transferring criminal property, was sentenced to four years in prison. Michael Jones, 39, who worked for Sheen and was convicted of burglary at trial, was sentenced to two years and three months. Toilet once offered to Trump ADVERTISEMENT The toilet weighed just over 98 kilograms and was worth more than its weight in gold. The value of the bullion at the time was 2.8 million pounds (NZ$5.8 million), but it was insured for 4.7 million pounds (more than NZ$9.9 million). The piece by Cattelan, whose work of a banana duct-taped to a wall was sold in 2024 for $6.2 million (NZ$10.3 million) at auction in New York, poked fun at excessive wealth. It had previously been on display at The Guggenheim Museum in New York. When US President Donald Trump asked the museum to loan him a Van Gogh painting during his first term in office, the Guggenheim cheekily offered the toilet instead. The White House did not accept the offer. The toilet had just gone on display when Jones visited the museum twice, booking a viewing the day before the theft to take photos, check out the lock and have his own private session on the golden throne. He deemed the experience 'splendid' during his testimony. Cameras capture swift smash-and-grab The next morning before dawn the gang of thieves crashed through the wooden gates of the palace in two stolen vehicles and tore across well-tended lawns. They pulled up to the estate's courtyard and smashed a window that Jones had photographed the day before. The thieves used sledgehammers and a crowbar to wrench the toilet from its foundation, causing considerable damage to the 18th-century property, a UNESCO World Heritage site filled with valuable art and furniture that draws thousands of visitors each year. ADVERTISEMENT Surveillance footage showed one of the men, whose face was hidden in a black mask, walking from the palace with a golden toilet seat in his hand. Two other men appeared to lift something golden into the trunk of a waiting car and the suspension sagged under the weight. Sheen's DNA was found on a sledgehammer left behind at the scene of the crime indicating he was among the burglars. Investigators also found hundreds of gold fragments on a pair of sweatpants at his home, which had come from cutting up the spoils of the caper. Sheen had sent a relative a photo of 520,000 pounds (NZ$1.1 million) in cash, which a prosecutor said was for the sale of about a fifth of the gold. None of the gold or money has ever been recovered and no one else was charged with the theft. Detective Superintendent Bruce Riddell of the Thames Valley Police said the investigation is ongoing and could include recovering luxury goods that were purchased with proceeds from the crime. He said investigators are confident they know at least two of the other culprits but don't have the evidence yet to charge them. Another convict, Frederick Doe, 37, also known as Frederick Sines, who tried to help Sheen find a buyer for the gold was spared a jail term when Pringle sentenced him last month to a suspended sentence for conspiracy to transfer criminal property. Pringle said the thieves had taken advantage of him. Law catches up with long-time criminals ADVERTISEMENT Both Sheen and Jones had lengthy criminal records, prosecutor Julian Christopher said. At the time of the burglary, Sheen was on parole for a firearms conviction that involved a running gun battle with another car that injured passengers in a third vehicle. He was arrested for additional crimes while on release and has since been sentenced to serve more than 19 years in prison. Jones had a record dating back to the age of 13 that included burglary, several car thefts and robbery. Almost six years ago, on the eve of the heist, Jones did his reconnaissance work testing out the toilet. It was a Friday the 13th (local time), a day many consider unlucky. For several years it appeared that fortune had favoured the burglars. They avoided charges for more than four years and several thieves have not been brought to justice. But Sheen and Jones ultimately paid a price for their roles — on Friday the 13th (local time).
The Spinoff
2 days ago
- The Spinoff
Understanding Sir Roger Hall, the most successful playwright in New Zealand
His name sits above the title of most of his plays. It might even sit above the phrase 'New Zealand theatre'. Sam Brooks speaks to Sir Roger Hall about paving the way for an entire artform. The country's most successful playwright cuts an unassuming figure. He is unostentatiously dressed, peers at me through spectacles, and has a freshly printed list of his plays, all 47 of them, in front of him. Within those 47 plays are ones that have gone to the West End, plays that are performed regularly throughout New Zealand and plays that have kept both venues and theatre companies open through honest-to-god grassroots popularity. The plays on those two pages represent one of the load-bearing pillars of New Zealand theatre, alongside Creative New Zealand (financially) and Bruce Mason (artistically). The most recent of these plays, End of the Summer Time, has already had two sold-out seasons in Wellington, and the Auckland premiere is on track to do the same. But who is the most successful playwright in New Zealand's theatre history? And what is his legacy? Roger Hall was born in 1939 in Essex, the only child of an insurance official father and schoolteacher mother. He attended college there and avoided the National Service due to 'not being officer material' before emigrating to New Zealand when he was 19 because it was 'more English' than Australia; and it is a fascinating tension to parse that someone who seems as core to New Zealand's storytelling voice as Hall, is a British immigrant. In a punchline that he would probably cut from any draft of one of his comedies as being too obvious, the boat he came over was called The Captain Cook. There was no clear pathway for playwriting in the 1950s but Hall had an early affinity for writing. 'I always wanted to be a writer, but I never thought of being a playwright,' he says in a gentle, low voice with that slight British lilt that has followed many of his generation across the globe. 'English was my best subject, and even when I was at school I got a story published in a national magazine. And that was the only subject I really worked at. Everything else I was bored with, and I really didn't make much effort.' The first character description Hall wrote in his first play Glide Time back in 1976 could describe himself pretty accurately: 'Works hard and efficiently at his job, though pretends not to. Quite well educated, well spoken and with a quick wit. Usually wears quite a good suit.' Shortly after arriving in New Zealand, Hall worked in insurance while performing in amateur theatre, taking on small roles in The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo & Juliet, before attending Wellington's Teacher College in the early 60s. While studying, he wrote and performed in late night sketch shows at Downstage (RIP, but the space it occupied is now called the Hannah Playhouse), continued to perform in plays with the Drama Society and would send in television reviews to The Listener. 'I was, of course, writing letters to my parents,' he says. 'At least one a week, maybe more – and also to my friends. I count the letter writing as part of my writing apprenticeship. Because writing a good letter is still skillful.' After graduating, Hall taught at Berhampore School, and wrote for his students what would technically be his first ever play, The Enormous Christmas Cracker. Meanwhile he was determined to get a sitcom picked up by the BBC back in England. He performed in the Victoria University Revue in the early 70s with the likes of John Clarke (who famously went on to create Fred Dagg, and be one of the grandfathers of New Zealand comedy), Helene Wong and Cathy Downes. He practiced his craft by writing more sketch shows, revues and television plays – all more or less lost forms today. Wong remembers Hall, and co-writer Dave Smith, bringing a strong satirical flavour to the writing, especially in regards to targeting politicians through 'brilliant impersonations'. While political comedy is commonplace now – comedians throw softball questions at politicians on 7 Days at the regular – this wasn't the done thing back then. Politicians were people to be respected, not lampooned, and this style of comedy, extremely British in origin, was only just seeping through. 'They got a rapturous response from audiences who were now used to seeing and hearing those politicians on television,' she says. 'So [they] got laughs from the recognition factor as well as for the sharpness of the writing.' 'It felt like the revue had gone to the next level.' The turning point for Hall was the mid-70s, when he received an Arts Council (the contemporary equivalent of Creative New Zealand) grant to study television writing for six months in New York. He was invited by Robert Lord, New Zealand's first professional playwright, to go to the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights' Workshop – the same year a post-Julliard, pre-Oscar Meryl Streep was there. 'That was for stage plays – the standard was such that Broadway producers were hanging around looking for plays to put on,' he recalls. 'Every play was rehearsed for two days and you could sit and watch, and at night they rehearsed the final reading.' Hall recalls the American audience praising the readings, whether they were good or not. 'I thought, actually, it's not that good… it's just okay, and then I thought, 'Oh, I can do that!' He went up to the workshop's library, began writing a few pages of dialogue set in an office – where Hall was working back in New Zealand at the time – and when he came home from the workshop he wrote Glide Time. 'It changed my life,' he says. It also changed New Zealand theatre. Theatre in 1976 didn't look like it does now. Many of our professional companies were barely a decade old, including the Downstage in Wellington (RIP), the Mercury Theatre in Auckland (RIP), the Fortune Theatre in Dunedin (RIP), and the Court Theatre in Christchurch (still alive!). Circa Theatre, now Wellington's premiere mainstage, was formed as an artist-led response to New Zealand's administration-heavy professional scene, dominated very much by overseas work. 'Apart from Bruce Mason there were virtually no New Zealand plays being presented here,' Hall points out. 'Then you had the community theatres which used to be amateur theatres called the British Drama League, so they didn't do New Zealand plays.' Industry scuttlebutt states that Glide Time was the play that opened Circa Theatre, when in actual fact, the play that opened the theatre was more reminiscent of the theatre scene at the time: Kennedy's Children, an Off-Broadway hit about five people mourning the death of John F. Kennedy. Nobody remembers Kennedy's Children. People remember Glide Time. Glide Time follows the staff of a nameless office bickering, squabbling and generally not doing very well at their jobs. Many have compared it to The Office, but I'd argue the tone sits closer to Ianucci's The Thick of It, or even Veep. Many New Zealanders are probably more familiar with the TV adaptation, Gliding On, which Hall recalls 'everybody', and emphasises 'everybody' watching. It was a sensation back when it premiered at Circa Theatre in 1976, selling out two seasons and then transferring to the Opera House. The waitlist, notoriously, was over 1,000. The cast, and Hall, became overnight celebrities. Glide Time was the first time that Alison Quigan saw a Roger Hall play, when she was working as a typist at Massey University. 'Because the play was about working in an office I was sure he had been a fly on the wall in our office,' she says. 'It was scarily accurate, and I laughed until the tears ran down my face. Seeing that play, I wanted to be an actor.' Quigan went on to be one of Hall's key collaborators, programming many of his shows during her tenure as the Artistic Director of Palmerston North's Centrepoint Theatre, and going on to work on 20 productions, including the upcoming Auckland Theatre Company season of End of the Summer Time. In the aftermath of Glide Time's success, Hall recalls friends saying that they could hear desk drawers being pulled open, dusty scripts being unearthed and typewriters firing away. 'It was a big change in the atmosphere of New Zealand theatre,' he says. 'It was a big incentive because up until then it was thought, by and large, success could only be achieved overseas. 'But here, we realised that the public quite liked us. They found that for New Zealand plays, there was an audience.' For Hall, the success was like winning Lotto. He was 37 at the time, and making a modest living from writing gigs here and there. 'A lot of money came pouring in and suddenly I went from being unknown to known.' His next play, Middle-Age Spread, had a similar level of success in 1977, and the script was picked up by a producer on the West End, where it went on the win the Laurence Olivier Award for Comedy, the only time a play written by a New Zealander has ever won that prize (essentially the British version of the Tonys, the theatre version of the Oscars). From there, the success has barely let up, and he continues to be programmed prolifically across the country, and even abroad in Australia. When asked if he was worried about following up that early success, he says. 'You know they said to Joseph Heller after Catch-22, 'You never wrote another one like that!' and he said, 'nor has anyone else!'' 'I made a lot of money and I was made after that,' he reflects, matter of factly. 'Plays that were quite major productions. The big thing was, if I wrote a play, it would get read at the theatre, which isn't always the case.' (As a fellow playwright, I can fact check that and confirm in the affirmative.) 'Success' is a nebulous word to apply to a form like playwriting. The most well-known playwrights in the country are not necessarily the most prolific, the highest-selling, or frankly, even the best. Those who are popular with the public might be side-eyed by the industry, and those who are beloved by the industry might not even be able to get programmed, let alone sell out shows. So let's put it into numbers. Playwrights make money in one of two ways: commissions and royalties. Commissions involve being paid up front by a company to write a play, and royalties are what the playwright collects after a production – traditionally 10% of the production's total box office. In New Zealand, playwrights are represented by our only playwriting agency, Playmarket, which also acts as an advocate for those same writers and the artform in general. Between 1999 and 2019, eight of the top 10 plays that Playmarket collected royalties on were written by Hall – and the other two plays are not too dissimilar from Hall plays. Without getting into the weeds, that isn't just one production selling extremely well. That is multiple productions selling extremely well. Companies want to produce plays that make money, plays that make money generally build an audience for both playwright and company, and it's a ball that keeps rolling. His most recent show, End of the Summer Time, which has its Auckland premiere later this month, sold out a return season at Wellington's Circa Theatre before it even opened. That sort of financial success has enabled Hall's philanthropy, not just for the arts – he funds an award each year for the Arts Foundation through the Roger Hall Theatre Trust – but for organisations like Forest and Bird. Or let's put it into letters. As in, the letters before and after his name. 'Sir', 'KNZM', 'QSO'. Success by a colonial metric, but success nonetheless. Or just… simple recognition. If you ask someone to name a playwright, they'll probably say 'Shakespeare'. Name another? Probably Roger Hall. That's a lot for one playwright – and one man – to carry. But what is a Roger Hall play? A modern audience would probably assume that a Roger Hall play is a broad comedy with a wink-wink title, focussed on middle-aged, middle-classed Pākeha, with a tight structure that wraps up every loose end and guarantees a pleasant time at the theatre. The fourth wall remains very much intact, and the punchlines prod at their targets rather than skewer them. For those under the age of 40, Hall's work is more of a vague concept, than a lived reality. They might have seen one of his pantomimes as a child, or gone with their elders to see one of his comedies. Despite being around the scene for about fifteen years, I've only ever seen one Roger Hall in full, A Shortcut to Happiness, about a Russian immigrant who teaches dance classes for the elderly. I enjoyed it, while acknowledging that I was not the target audience. Other shows that have premiered since I've been seeing theatre, such as Easy Money (about scammers living in a fancy Viaduct apartment) and Last Legs (set in a retirement home) seemed too familiar for me to bother. Like too many of my compatriots, I assumed there was one Roger Hall play. The reality is, however, that there isn't. There are 47, although there are sequels littered throughout. His most successful plays – Glide Time, Middle Aged Spread, Four Flat Whites in Italy, Social Climbers – fit the assumed tropes outlined above. However, there are experimental shows within his 47. He has written a play entirely from Hansard transcripts, co-written a musical-comedy lampooning Mills and Boone novels, and, in what many people I spoke to consider to be his best, most underrated work, an epic family drama spanning the 20th century called A Way of Life. That production is a fascinating outlier for Hall; a drama, a massive cast, and only having one professional outing. It is, for my money, one of the best family dramas I've ever read to come out of this country. You could point to many reasons that it hasn't become instilled as a New Zealand classic – the demise of the New Zealand Actor's Company, the fact that it hasn't had a production in a major centre, the subject matter being assertively rural and not urban – but the quality definitely isn't one of them. Although Hall works within a form that is conservative, his politics remain pretty left-leaning. His characters are generally middle-class workers, generally anti-corporation and anti-wealth hoarding. This is someone who wrote an anti-Muldoon screed, The Rose, while Muldoon was still prime minister. (It is an unintentional quirk of his success that Hall is probably more financially secure than many of the characters that populate his work.) Playwright, screenwriter and novelist Duncan Sarkies was one of Hall's students back in the 90s – industry lore also says that Hall is the only playwright who can afford to just be a playwright, but he taught at Otago for a number of years – and believes that Hall has a strong sensibility, especially in regards to his specific audience. 'He represented a middle class who might have been ambivalent to theatre and brought them into these spaces in large numbers, held a mirror to them, and made them laugh at themselves,' Sarkies says. 'Regardless of whether his oeuvre is to your taste or not, Roger Hall has had a huge impact on New Zealand theatre, an incredibly positive presence.' 'Roger's plays are mostly comedies with serious intent,' Quigan says. 'To me, comedy is tragedy – but with better timing. The truth must always be present to make people laugh and therefore to relate to the situation. All of Roger's plays are deceptively complex. Many people, when they first read them, see a simple story well told. A light comedy. But, without fail, once we start rehearsing there are many levels that are revealed.' Some of the social politics in his work remain of a time gone by. Women are described quite a bit by their physical attributes, men are notably not. People of colour are not absent, but not necessarily foregrounded. The people in his modern work are middle class in the most idealised (and now unrealistic) version of the middle class – the kind of middle class people who have mortgages, not landlords. But do we need to struggle with the politics in his work? In our conversation in that cafe, Hall points something out about modern theatre when prompted. 'It seems that this generation of plays want to use the stage as a pulpit,' he says. 'Come along and you'll be better informed and your opinion will change on whatever issue it is.' 'That's not necessarily what it's for – or entertaining!' There also hangs the umbrella that his success has not been replicated since. You can point to a few things. There is his sheer prolificity – very few people have written more plays than he has, and that's before you even consider how many of those plays have been programmed. The state of New Zealand theatre is also a very different place now than it was when he started writing; there are more playwrights, fewer theatres, and much less funding available for both. It's competitive, and not just among compatriots; theatres that programme plays are also programming musicals, comedies, dance works, and often commercial bookings just to stay alive. Crucially, Hall also writes for audiences that are often not catered to by our local playwrights: people outside urban centres, people working in amateur dramatic societies, and people who simply want to have a good time at the theatre. His work is not free of politics, not even close, but his politics are hidden beneath an accessible form and guaranteed punchlines. (It is perhaps the only cruel irony of his career that his best play, A Way of Life – which is one of his most political, and incisive, speaking to the struggles of rural life in particular – has still only been put on once.) The main factor, however, is that he also writes for an older audience that already exists. He writes for people who already go to see theatre, the people who have grown up with him, and the people who trust him to show them, gently, who they are and what they think. It's what he's been doing for 50 years, and there is an undeniable amount of trust built there. The only others who come close are, frankly, no longer with us. Helene Wong, one of his first collaborators, sums it up succinctly: 'I think the huge body of work also reflects the fact that he's lived his long life basically documenting his experience of all its stages. 'Write what you know, they say – and he has.' There is a popular myth in playwriting circles. It goes that there are three sections in the Playmarket archive – A-R, Roger Hall and S-Z. Playmarket's director Murray Lynch debunks this, and corrects it. It's a story that illustrates volume as much as it does prestige and importance. 'Each playwright has their own named file. In the A-Z, Roger is highlighted in a different colour,' he says. Every playwright has a file, Sir Roger gets an entire colour. Hall has been generous with his time with me. He's been extremely prompt with confirming interviews, setting up a time, even though after our chat he is rushing off to a meeting of the Devonport branch of the U3A, short for University of the Third Age, a group that focuses on people in the 'third stage of life' who want to keep their minds active and connect with others in their community. (It'd make a great setting for a play, really.) This generosity is something that many people I spoke to emphasised, almost as much as how important his work is to New Zealand. It is evident, financially, with his philanthropy, but his moral support is also noted. 'Roger was very kind, very attentive,' says Sarkies. 'He shared a lot of the dark arts of writing, like planting a seed that will have a payoff later, rules of threes, that kind of thing. He understood tension in writing, which may or may not surprise people. 'He was very, very supportive of me and gave me a lot of confidence. This meant a lot to me and I remain very grateful.' Towards the end of our interview, I point out that End of the Summer Time features, both in Auckland and Wellington, his name literally and metaphorically over the title. It wasn't End of the Summer Time by Roger Hall, it was Roger Hall's End of the Summer Time. He's perhaps the only playwright in the country who can do that (even though it's a marketing ploy rather than an ego play). His response? 'That's possibly true. You're saying it is true?' He appears humbled by it, but not necessarily surprised. I ask him more pointedly about how he feels about where he sits in the theatre scene – playwright, philanthropist, man with letters before and after his name. His answer is simple, structured and frankly, factual.
