38 MAY 2017
I
t’s 25 years since
Shortland Street’s
first title sequence
resonated
through living
rooms around New
Zealand and viewers
first met a string of
core characters who
would becomeregular
7pm companions.
The early years of the
show set in a fictional
hospital came with risk
and expectation –
would we like seeing
versions of ourselves
five nights a week on
screen? Would we like
hearing our accents?
ButShortland Street
thrived and endured,
and 25 years later is a
significant part of New
Zealand’s social
landscape – giving
viewers familiar
entertainment at
teatime, while reflecting
our stories back to us
and providing a
training ground for
some of the country’s
greatest talent.
To celebrate the
milestone anniversary,
The Australian Women’s
Weeklybrought
together six core cast
members from those
early years –Claire
Chitham, Theresa
Healey, Danielle
Cormack, John Leigh,
Lynette Forday and Peter
Elliott – to reminisce
about the debut years of
New Zealand’s longest
running soap. We share their reflections
on the show’s fortitude and how their
time in fictional Ferndale has affected
their lives.Claire Chithamfirst appeared as
Waverley Wilson in 1994. It was
meant to be a five-week gig but the
bubbly, meddling Waverley became a“Waverley was Rachel
McKenna’s [Angela
Bloomfield] cousin, a
country bumpkin who
idolised Kirsty Knight
[Angela Dotchin] and
went a little ‘single
white female’ on her,
chopped off all her
hair and went blonde.
I still remember sitting
at the hairdresser for
eight hours while they
tried to dye it. This
was 1994 – the hair
technology was
different then!
Waverley was in
love with Stuart
[Martin Henderson]
but decided she should
sleep with Nick to get
practice for Stuart – as
you do! And that’s
when the Waverley/
Nick combo kicked
off. The romance
scenes were definitely
awkward but
Waverley and Nick
really only had pecks.
I don’t think anyone
needed to see
Waverley do
anything sexual.
When people do
recognise me and want
to talk to me about
the show they get very
warm and glowy.
Someone actually
walked up to me in a
store once and told me
they had named their
daughter Waverley! It is
really nice for me that
people do have fond
memories of her
because if you took someone back
they would remember she was
actually one of the most frustrating
characters – she would always put her
foot in her mouth and if you hoped a
romance was going in a certain
direction you could guarantee
Waverley would come in to mess it up!
She did a lot of talking and I gotpopular character and stayed on the
showfor six months. In 1998 she was
written back in to the show and spent
a further six years there. Waverley ran
the coffee shop, then bar, and married
Nick (Karl Burnett), with whom she
had a daughter. The popular couple
return to Ferndale again this month to
celebrate the 25th anniversary.“ I don’t think anyone
needed to see Waverley do
anything sexual.”
Claire Chitham
as Waverley on
her wedding
day to Nick,
played by
Karl Burnett.