New Zealand Listener – August 24, 2019

AUGUST 24 2019 LISTENER 65

SUNDAY AUGUST 25

Sunday Theatre: A War Story

(TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). Sunday

Theatre returns with three

new true-story dramatisations

and a documentary,

starting with this tale that

also pays tribute to one of

New Zealand’s best-known

journalists. Peter Arnett

covered the Vietnam War, the

Gulf War and the US invasion

of Iraq. He won a Pulitzer

Prize in 1966 for his Vietnam

reportage and worked for

a number of news outlets,

including the Associated

Press and CNN. In 1997, his

newsman’s nose led him

to Afghanistan, where the

leader of a new terror group,

al-Qaeda, was issuing death

threats against the US. A War

Story is directed by another

New Zealand legend, John

Laing, and written by Dean

Parker. Arnett is played by

John Leigh, his

producer, Peter

Bergen, is played

by Kiwi Tim Carlsen,

and Australian actor George

Kanaan has the invidious

task of portraying Osama bin

Laden.

MONDAY AUGUST 26

Wild Bill (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm).

There’s a kind of cognitive

dissonance in seeing Ameri-

can actor Rob Lowe, he of

the chiselled jaw and perfect

hair who once played a

smooth-talking deputy

White House communica-

tions director, playing a

cop in Lincolnshire. It’s

like seeing a moa walking

down Queen St. But our

eyes are not deceiving us in

the six-part series described

by the Spectator as “almost

hallucina-

tory in its

oddness”. Lowe

is, of course, the

Wild Bill of the title, a US

cop who is appointed chief

constable of the East Lin-

colnshire police force. It’s not

all lost cats and traffic fines,

however; there are murders,

gangsters and racism, even if

Bill claims it can all be solved

with algorithms.

ment

microcosm of lots of different

societal groups living in one

very small place”.

“It probably represents

Waiheke more as it might have

been 20 years ago, as opposed

to what is a fairly bustling

metropolis out there now.”

The island setting was one

of the reasons that The Gulf

attracted German financing

and is a co-production

between Screentime NZ,

Lippy Pictures and German

fiction specialist Letterbox

Filmproduktion. It will screen

on ZDF in Germany shortly

after it is broadcast here.

“ZDF was intrigued with

the idea of Waiheke and what

it saw as a very exotic place,”

says de Lacey. She first worked

with Boock and Malane in

2010 on the true-crime story

Bloodlines. The two writers

have also been responsible for

such quality projects as Field

Punishment No 1, Tangiwai:

A Love Story and the award-

winning Jean, also starring the

brilliant Elliott.

The rest of the cast are

equally excellent, including Ido

Drent, Jeffrey Thomas, Alison

Bruce, Mark Mitchinson, Pana

Hema-Taylor and Scott Wills.

The overarching story of the

six-part series is what de Lacey

describes as Jess’ “investigation

into herself”. She is struggling

with pain and memory loss

after a car accident that left her

husband dead and becomes

convinced that someone is

trying to kill her.

But will Waiheke Islanders

take to The Gulf? “I hope that

they get sucked into the story

and enjoy the ride and enjoy

spotting bits of Waiheke that

they know.”l

Sunday Theatre: A

War Story, Sunday.

The Best of the Week

Television

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Wild Bill, Monday.