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NZ Herald
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
The Start of The Golden Weather: Andrew Dickens remembers a special theatre performance
Takapuna Beach on Auckland's North Shore, rumoured to be the setting of The End of the Golden Weather. Canterbury's Court Theatre has just opened its spiffing new building with a production of Bruce Mason's The End of the Golden Weather. It's an iconic New Zealand performance piece. Witten as a novella, The End of the Golden Weather is set at a mythical Kiwi beach in Auckland during the Depression of the 1930s. It's the story of a boy growing up and coming of age and witnessing his community and family cope with hard times in an idyllic place. It's also the story of a loner called Firpo, who dreams of success by running in the Olympic Games – a delusion, but for a moment he becomes a hero in the boy's eyes. Mason wrote the piece in the 1950s and then toured the country performing it solo. The first time he did that was in 1959. He went on to perform it more than a 1000 times in community halls the length and breadth of the country. It was made into a film in 1991 by Ian Mune. The recently deceased Raymond Hawthorne fashioned it into a piece for a theatre company in the '80s. But that was not the first time a company performed it. That honour belongs to a school production by Auckland Grammar and Epsom Girls Grammar in 1980. I know because I was in it. I was Firpo. I was 17. Freda Mitchinson from EGGS was the architect, with help from John Heyes at Grammar. Their ambition was spurred on by the success of the previous year's production of Death of a Salesman, which featured knock-out performances from kids who went on to make names for themselves. Simon Prast was Willie Loman, Rima Te Wiata the scarlet lady (aka The Woman) and Finlay MacDonald, later Listener editor, played Happy. We had a narrator, a boy called Tim, but that's all I remember. He was very good. He was our Bruce Mason. The boy at the heart of it was played by Andrew Laxon, a fourth former at the time. He's now a senior member of staff at the Herald. His character was an allegory of New Zealand coming of age. He was sweet and confused at the growing comprehension of adult life that was coming at him like a train. Miss Effie Brent was played by Liz Mullane, who became the New Zealand casting director for The Lord of the Rings. And me. The scripts were the books that we were all issued with. Our lines underscored with pencils, and our annotations in the margins. A lot of the stage direction was verbal, and we just had to remember it. The real genius of the production was the design in the Centennial Theatre. Much of the tale is recalled as memory. Later productions handle the shift from the present to past with lighting colour changes – golden yellowy lighting for memories. In 1980 we masked half the stage with a wall of muslin. When the lights were in front of it, it was a wall. When the lights were brought up behind it, the scenes became visible through a gauzy haze. No one has tried that since. It was magic. Our production was dark. We included the 1932 Auckland riots, something the film omitted. Firpo was deeply challenged mentally. The picture here is my only photographic evidence of the role, taken from the audience with a Kodak Instamatic. Alone in a spotlight screaming the 'Made Man' monologue at the heart of the character; I was shocked by my own intensity and the flying spittle. I had never wailed like that in real life, I was subsumed. A young Andrew Dickens as Firpo in Auckland Grammar's The End of the Golden Weather. Photo / supplied Bruce Mason himself came to see the final dress rehearsal, only two years from his death and ravaged by a stroke. He died before the Raymond Hawthorne production, so this was the only time Mason saw his creation as a play with a full company. I remember him watching silently with his half-collapsed face. He said nothing because he could not say anything, but we were told he enjoyed it. I am immensely proud of the production, its ambition and how it formed me. It was then I realised I had a performance gene, which later came out in my radio career. A girl called Helen Wild played the psychologist who committed Firpo to an asylum. She became my girlfriend and later the mother of my children. We're still together 45 years on, and we still joke that she committed me, once upon a time. I don't know whether schools take production risks the way the two grammars did back in the day. We would do a Gilbert and Sullivan for mass participation and general snogging but then put a serious drama on later in the year. It was the serious drama that forged and inspired the actors like Simon Prast and Rima Te Wiata to embark upon their journeys in drama. It's a reminder that kids don't need to be cosseted. Kids grow when challenged. Pressure makes diamonds. We can all become a Made Man.
NZ Herald
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Sir Roger Hall's End of Summer Time brings Dickie Hart back to the stage
'One of yours?' I asked, assuming it was a quote from one of his plays. 'I think so,' he said. 'I've just noted it down and thought I'd use it somewhere.' Hopefully, he'll forgive me for getting in first. Over the past five decades, Hall has written a roll call of hit comedies for the stage, TV sitcoms, a pantomime version of Cinderella and a radio show for the BBC. He's also had a few misses along the way. If there's no such thing as an overnight success – he'd been writing in one way or another for 15 years before bursting through with his first play, Glide Time – there's no such thing as an overnight failure, either. Both require dedication and a considerable amount of hard work. 'Writing can be a joy when it goes well,' says Hall, whose 41st play, End of Summer Time, opens in Auckland next month. Sir Roger Hall on Takapuna Beach where, in 2005, he staged a scene from Bruce Mason's play The End of the Golden Weather, a performance which has become an annual ritual. Photo / Dean Purcell Resurrecting one of his most popular characters, Dickie Hart, the one-man show is heading north after an extended six-week run at Wellington's Circa Theatre, where there wasn't a single empty seat in the house. 'Most of the time, you wouldn't swap this for anything. But sometimes you crave to go into an office where you know what the day's work ahead is going to be and you don't have to think, because there's somebody to tell you what to do.' It's comforting, somehow, to know it hasn't always come easy. According to Hall, he's 'not good at plot', isn't interested in description and keeps telling himself never to write another musical. So far, he's done four. 'Half the money for twice the work,' he jokes, although the odd royalty cheque still arrives for Footrot Flats: The Musical, which has been staged 130 times. Last month, he received a 'modest' sum for a new production by the Hopetoun Amateur Theatrical Society in Western Australia. Next year, Sir Roger Hall will notch up his half century as a playwright credited with transforming New Zealand's theatre scene. Photo / Dean Purcell Running through his playlist, he ticks off some of the wins and losses in his theatre career. The Share Club, inspired by the get-rich fervour of 'mum and dad' investors before the 1987 market crash, was one of the wins, becoming Downstage Theatre's longest-running play. I'd never heard of A Way of Life, the story of a multi-generational farming family, which he considers one of his best plays. 'No one else thinks so, because there's not enough humour. The first night [in 2001], it got a standing ovation at Tauranga, but a lot of people didn't want a serious play from me. I was hugely disappointed in that one.' Audiences stayed away from his more cerebral, political plays like The Rose, a thinly veiled attack on the Muldoon era. Then again, nobody wanted to know about golf (Golf: A Love Story), either. Well, I wouldn't go to a play about golf, I tell him. 'You're not alone,' he grumbles, good-naturedly. His weekly coffee group felt much the same. 'I did some research and asked how many of them would go to see a play about golf. No one? Okay, well, I'm still going to write it.' Of course, it's his remarkable string of successes that people do remember. No offence, I say, tongue-in-cheek, to the man typically described as New Zealand's most successful playwright. But if you're not much good at plot or description, what exactly are you good at, then? He pauses, considering the question seriously for a moment. 'Funny dialogue, really. And good characters.' I t's easy to forget just how transformational Hall's influence has been on the New Zealand theatre scene, creating an appetite for local productions at a time when quality was still equated with (often mediocre) British plays. Next year, it'll be half a century since Glide Time affectionately satirised Wellington's public service bureaucracy. It sold out after the first night. Rehearsals for a production of Glide Time at Waipukurau Little Theatre in 2014. Photo / Warren Buckland The late John Clarke wrote of Hall's ability to identify 'the faults and follies that highlight small monsters in ordinary people'. Ironically, his knack for nailing the angst and aggravations of the Kiwi middle class was shaped by his own childhood back in England. Biffed out of school by his father for under-performing academically, he worked in insurance for a couple of years before setting sail for Wellington in the late 1950s to avoid being called up for compulsory national service. He'd just turned 19. His life came full circle, 20 years later, when he won Comedy of the Year with a production of Middle Age Spread on London's West End, starring Richard Briers and Paul Eddington from The Good Life. Hall, who was presented with the award by Sir John Gielgud, thought the original Circa show was just as good. A poster in Sir Roger Hall's office from the award-winning West End production of his play, Middle Age Spread, which featured two of the most popular British actors at the time. Photo / Dean Purcell Generally speaking, his foreign origins haven't been held against him here. 'Max Cryer used to say, 'Of course, you're English!' I'd tell him I may be English, but I'm a New Zealand writer because all my writing was done here. And I don't think like an English writer, I'm sure.' By the time Hall released his 1998 biography, Bums on Seats, he'd already recorded $20 million in box-office sales. According to Playmarket NZ, two of the most licensed plays in New Zealand this century were written by Hall: Four Flat Whites in Italy, about two retired couples on a late-life OE, and Social Climbers, where five high-school teachers get trapped in a tramping hut. It's true, there's a generation (or two) for whom the concept of a Roger Hall play dates back to the ark. Despite his reputation for supporting emerging playwrights, he is not – possibly never has been – considered particularly cool. However, older theatregoers remain staunch supporters of the arts in these straitened times and much of his audience has aged alongside him, remaining fiercely loyal. Since its opening season in 1993, the Auckland Theatre Company has averaged a Roger Hall play every two years, banking on the kind of box-office returns that allow riskier scheduling elsewhere on the programme. Mark Hadlow and Alison Quigan in Winding Up, described in one review as "a poignant lesson in undying love". Photo / Andi Crown Photography His 2020 show, Winding Up, revisited Barry and Gen from his 90s hit Conjugal Rites, as they bickered their way through retirement. End of Summer Time sees the return of another fan favourite, Dickie Hart, a Roger Hall kind of character name if ever there was one. The curmudgeonly cow cocky made his first appearance in the one-man show C'mon Black, about his life-changing trip to the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa (where the defeated All Blacks may or may not have been deliberately 'poisoned'). In the sequel You Gotta Be Joking, Dickie and wife Glenda had upped sticks from the farm and moved to Wellington. Now, much to Dickie's horror, they're relocating north to be closer to the grandchildren. Auckland! It's crowded, expensive… Traffic's terrible. All everyone thinks about is money. And they don't even have a decent footie team. Auckland! Over my dead body. It's a deal, Glenda says. Tickets are selling strongly for the show, following the massive success of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, which has been scheduled for a return season next February. Andrew Grainger will play Dickie, with Alison Quigan as director. Hall's long-time collaborator, she's worked on more than 20 of his productions, on and off the stage. With End of Summer Time, Hall wanted to write a play about someone close to his age – Dickie is in his 70s. It's also a love letter to Auckland, where he and wife Dianne have lived for many years now after moving up from Dunedin, where he had a long association with the Fortune Theatre. From the first day, he felt very much at home. 'It was warm, it was vibrant,' he says. 'Auckland is a wonderful arts city, but hardly anyone recognises that. In fact, it has a more diverse and more interesting arts scene than Wellington. The difference is Wellingtonians are proud of it.' Andrew Grainger plays cow cocky Dickie Hart in Sir Roger Hall's one-man play End of Summer Time, opening in Auckland next month. The title, End of Summer Time, echoes the late Bruce Mason's acclaimed one-man show, The End of the Golden Weather, which made a huge impression on Hall when he saw it in the early 60s. In 2005, he arranged for a scene from The End of the Golden Weather set on Takapuna Beach to be performed there on Christmas Day – a ritual that has since become a popular annual tradition. Another of his legacies is the recently established Roger Hall Theatre Trust, managed by the Arts Foundation. A $25,000 laureate is awarded every second year, alternating with five 'Out of the Limelight' awards of $5000 each, acknowledging vital contributions behind the scenes. Despite his many accolades, Hall's work has often been met by critics with muted enthusiasm. Being popular – 'getting 'bums on seats' – is looked down on by some with an element of snobbery that must have stung him at times. 'Yes, certainly,' he admits. 'But then you think, 'I'm a bit hurt, but gosh, look at the bookings!' That's better than the other way around: wonderful reviews but nobody's going. So, it is a consolation to think the public seem to like it. 'Woody Allen says something about how writing comedy means you never get to dine at the top table. In other words, it's never really regarded by critics as worthy of a 'serious' play. Yet the message can be almost more important and it certainly needs the most skill.' His great inspiration, British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, is just a couple of months younger than Hall and still writing the kind of comedies both men love, with an underlying sense of pathos. As an older Pākehā man, Hall is aware the ground is shifting to make way for a new generation of writers with different views and different things to say. He's been dabbling with another play, but so far it's not leaping off the page. 'I dutifully tap away a bit, hoping that it'll catch fire and it hasn't. But I can hardly complain. After 50 years of playwriting, if the muse decides it's done with me, then that's fair enough.' Roger Hall's End of Summer Time is on at Auckland's ASB Waterfront Theatre from June 17 to July 5. A season at the new Court Theatre in Christchurch, starring Ross Gumbley, runs from June 21 to August 16. Joanna Wane is an award-winning senior lifestyle writer with a special interest in social issues and the arts.
1News
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- 1News
Christchurch's Court Theatre makes grand return to the CBD
Christchurch's Court Theatre has made its grand return to the city, more than a decade after losing its home due to damage caused caused by the February 2011 earthquake. The original theatre, founded in 1971, was housed in the Arts Centre. A new location was found in Addington following the quake. Today, people queued to get a look at its brand new forever home, that cost $61 million to complete. The first reactions as people walked through the doors were all very positive. 'It's beautiful. I'm really excited to see lots of shows here,' one theatregoer said. ADVERTISEMENT 'It's just magical. It's such a moment for the city," another added. The state of the art facility on Gloucester St houses two theatres – one large auditorium that seats 377, and a more intimate space that seats 150. One of Christchurch's newest residents, days-old Elias, stopped by with his family to give it a once-over. "We thought we'd pop down and see the new opening, and I'm quite interested in architecture and was quite excited to see the building," his father said. Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger described the project as a turning point for the city. 'Its return to the CBD is more than symbolic – it's a celebration of what we can achieve when we work together," he said. With the opening of its new home, the theatre is expected to grow significantly. It currently produces 20 shows annually with a combined audience of 120,000. ADVERTISEMENT Court Theatre executive director Gretchen La Roche said the new building "represents a transformative moment for the city's arts scene'. The first production in the new building, The End of the Golden Weather, opened last night. Artistic director Alison Walls called it symbolic and stirring. 'It feels beautifully fitting we open our new home with this deeply personal national story."
RNZ News
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Opening Night! A new era for Otautahi's Court Theatre
Photo: supplied There's a big weekend in store for Christchurch where the curtain is being raised on the new Court Theatre . The new $56 million playhouse is the theatre's first permanent home since the 2011 earthquake destroyed its Arts Centre venue. Since then, the theatre has masqueraded as "The Shed" in a converted warehouse in Addington. The new theatre is the latest act in a four-decades-old saga involving multiple venues and reinvention. Court Theatre artistic director Ross Gumbley and Lara Macgregor, director of opening show The End of the Golden Weather , speak to Susie.
