This weird life of mine!
It feels as though I’ve been a few times round the block which is a bit crazy considering I was eighteen years old before I ever climbed onto a plane – Ōtautahi to Whanganui-a-Tara in 1963, a return trip for my girlfriend’s sister’s wedding – and fifty-two before I left the country at all.
Thirty-four years in between.
Some people have asked why, and the answers are simple: I didn’t do the old OE when everyone else seemed to because I was a working-class kid with no money, but I did have a gift – I was apparently great in the classroom – so I used that gift and stayed in Aotearoa chasing promotion within the education system.
If I’m honest, I was not at all sure that ‘overseas’ even existed.
Staying at home seemed to work because, just four years after graduation, I was principal of a sole charge school in the darkest depths of the King Country.
Two years after that I was Deputy Principal of a Taranaki Area School with four hundred youngsters to love, after which I was head-hunted to run a Special Education Unit for behaviourally challenged kids in Ngāmotu New Plymouth.
Next it was off up north to be principal of an Auckland Education Board two teacher school in Te Tai Tokerau, then back to Tāmaki Makaurau as a non-teaching Senior Teacher/Junior Classes in Otara with twenty three teachers on my team, and all that in just nine years.
Was it worth it since I threw it all away to become an actor?
It most certainly was.
Why?
For the first seventeen years of my ludicrous life, I lived and grew up in Ōtautahi Christchurch, the white power capital of the universe, not that I knew it at the time.
I played rugby and cricket, was a failure at school, and the spectrum hadn’t been invented yet so I couldn’t blame that.
Until I was in the 6th form (Year 12), Māori people existed in my history books, and I couldn’t have cared less despite Miss Lockey’s very best efforts. As with everything else ‘school’, I kept my head down and, mostly, my gob shut. I knew a bit about the 28th Battalion because my Dad had fought with them in WWII and he said they were great but beyond that, nothing. My world was simply peopled with white trash bottom feeders from the wrong side of the tracks, and that was that.
So was my school.
I went to Linwood High School and hated it. It was a crap school, and I hated it so much I went back thirty-two years later as a teacher in the vain hope that it might have changed but it hadn’t.
That’s not altogether true though.
The student population now included plenty of Pasifika kids, some cuzzies, and dozens of lanky Somali refugees, so the divide between sunny Sumner privilege and serious Sydenham disadvantage had become even more pronounced, and it should have been pronounced ‘racist’ as well, at least in my book.
That statement, while absolutely true, won’t win me any friends but the evidence is there, as plain as the aquiline nose on your chubby Flower’s House face. Maybe worth a chapter in my upcoming book, and the Peter Ellis years would certainly be a great place to start.
Or with Mad Eddie chugging down lighter fluid.
Or even better, with the notorious Harris Gang.
Skinheads galore!
The students were great, some have become lifelong friends, but the staff not so much. I was tasked with running the Performing Arts Academy which should have been my dream job but mostly it wasn’t. The performing arts in the school had long been lauded locally as outstanding and it was in my days as a student. It was still good, but the passing of John Kim and Percy Weenink changed all that. The shows became formulaic, and I’ve never been much interested in theatre by numbers. It was also complex following on from Paul Bushnell who’d developed a loyal and devoted following among staff and students who, unable to blame the great man for the grief they felt when he jumped ship to work in radio, seemed to resent me even more.
Add the awful schoolteacher ‘I need you to be loyal to me and to no-one else’ thing and actually getting anything done was, at times, very difficult,
This wasn’t my first rodeo, so I was somewhat forearmed.
The exception was Tony Ryan who, apart from being a political fence-sitter, was absolutely outstanding with the music. Other than that, however, it was a hotbed of favouritism, jealousy, distrust, and resentment, with the work I managed to do the only saving grace for me.
Perhaps the nastiest example of petty teacher behaviour occurred when the three components of the academy – music, dance, and theatre – came together for public performances. What should have been a joy was, in reality, a nightmare. The head of department organised the rehearsal schedule which didn’t really challenge the musicians because they were self-contained – no artists doubling up with the other components – but some of my students were also taking the dance programme so it wasn’t possible to rehearse my presentations until dance had completed their rehearsals. Each group had a 90-minute rehearsal slot, but my actors never got the full 90 because dance always over-ran their time, on one occasion I didn’t get to rehearse my kids at all. I’m not much interested in hierarchies, but I was stuck in one, without any shadow of doubt.
Dance first, and theatre got what was left. It was pretty competitive too which was both unattractive and childish.
The kids were great, all of them, without exception, far more adult than the adults (me included) and many of them have had awesome careers and built beautiful families. I cherish the memories of the work and the young artists I had the privilege of spending those two years with.
I had quite a lot of respect for Paul.
His scripts were well crafted and, while not my cup of tea at all, they held together and were performable if a tad sequential and documentary-like. I inherited one and my first job was to finish the half-made show and to get it on which we did. I could have done without the cloying hero worship that went with it, and which got in the way of everyone doing their best work
Paul wrote reviews for, I think, The Christchurch Star, and as I was prolific at the time, he had plenty of opportunities to write about my work, an opportunity he took with more than a decent sense of glee. I found his reviews perceptive in a 1970s gay man sort of way, but the problem was that it was now the 90s, and his dated brand of sour bitchiness had become singularly out of fashion. Most of us had happily moved on from Dorothy Parker to Kenneth Tynan and now to that doyen of modern theatre reviewers The Guardian’s Michael Billington but Paul seemed somehow to have missed that memo.
My work didn’t come off too well from Paul’s tart tongue, which was annoying because, as an independent artist funding my own work, the words of bitter, middle-aged queens had the potential to keep new, middle-class audiences – the ones with the money – at home, fearful of taking a risk on anything new and untried.
There’s no doubt Parker’s bon mots ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me’ and ‘the first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue’ along with Tynan’s ‘there, standing at the piano, was the original good time who had been had by all’, and Billington’s ‘Godspell is back in London at The Young Vic. For those who missed it the first time, this is your golden opportunity: you can miss it again’ are incredibly amusing, especially so if they’re not aimed at you.
If they’re your particular cup of venom, you might try the late Dame Diana Rigg’s 1982 collection ‘No Turn Unstoned’. She’s collected literally hundreds of absolute zingers, but it’s Peter Hall who really gets to the heart of the Bushnell matter with ‘there are very few critics who when given an egg of talent in their hands can resist crushing it’.
Ouch.
Sir Peter had clearly been there, done that.
It’s probably best to simply say that this was Christchurch after all, a town riven by social, racial, and class divides where, having been born on the déclassé side of the tracks, a certain anarchic brilliance and a moot Fanny Flegg sexual ambiguity were essential components of my artistic mystique and subsequent success. I needed my work to be seen as somewhat unsafe, a tad titillating, if I wanted mention of my shows to be injected into the mindless, dinner party babble of the ticket-buying ‘ladies’ of that ersatz respectable town and Paul’s self-involved reviews put all that at risk. A friend suggested I write anonymous scathing reviews of Paul’s work for Radio New Zealand, but I actually really liked his work and so left him to get on with his urbane and well-heeled life lurking on the edge of an art form that I know he loved so much.
Despite the above, Paul still managed to say articulate things about my work from which I learned plenty, and I remain grateful for that. The rest was largely just style. I don’t think he singled my work out for his vitriol, from memory he shared it around pretty liberally. He clearly loved the tartery and he was very good at it.
Noel Coward summed up pretty well how I felt about Paul’s reviews. He said, critics never worry me unless they are right – but that does not often occur. In Paul’s case he was often right, but not always.
He reviewed my Hamlet, and this was always going to be problematic. By the time I got to play the role I was in my late thirties, had played Claudius four times, and directed the play twice. I’d seen countless versions live and on screen and I knew what I wanted to do with it. I didn’t direct and on opening night I was fairly wound up. We didn’t cut anything which made for a long evening, so we started at 7pm. It was pretty traditional, Elizabethan costumes, proscenium arch, raked seating, and I was ready to go at curtain up.
We all were.
By 7.15 I was getting a bit tense, so I tracked down the stage manager to find out why we hadn’t gone up. The cast were ready, so were the technical crew, so I could see no reason why the performance hadn’t begun.
The stage manager went to Front of House to find out why and came back to say that the reviewer and his partner were unhappy with the tickets they’d been allocated and wouldn’t come into the auditorium until they were changed. There were no bad seats in the 120-seat space, and I admit I didn’t handle the situation particularly well. I went out to the foyer in full costume and make up, gave Paul and his partner a real burst, told them to grow up, and to take to seats they’d been allocated.
To his credit he did as he was told – I’m not sure I would have – and the show went up.
The performance was a good one, the young cast were great, and everyone was happy including Paul who gave us a great review. He managed to write about everything in the play – lighting, sound, clothes, even the marketing – it was all great, but somehow, he managed to review the whole kit and kaboodle and not mention my Hamlet once. I have to say I think I earned that, and I certainly learned my lesson. I like to hope he did too. I believe it’s the only time ever anywhere in the world that ‘Hamlet’ has been reviewed without mentioning the performance of the central character.
Guinness, anyone, the book, I mean? Surely this is worth a mention.
Fortunately, other reviewers had plenty to say and much of it was quotable, so nothing was lost in the ultimate washup.
Some of the shows we made while I was at Linwood were very good indeed.
A wildly authentic production of William Wycherley’s raunchy 1675 restoration comedy ‘The Country Wife’ seriously failed to please uber conservative principal Derek Chapman – much too sexual, he said, before asking me to tone it down – which put the students, most of whom were adults and who loved nothing more than a smidgeon of theatrical smut, into a state of near revolt. A meeting was arranged and the cast determined to change nothing. I loved that cast – they got every inuendo, every ambiguity, the brace of intersecting plot devices – the rake’s impotence ploy that enables him to have secret dalliances with many willing married women, and the arrival in London of an inexperienced young ‘country wife’ who discovers the joys of town life and the pleasures of the captivating London men perhaps just a wee little bit too much.. Even the pun in the plays title was utterly revelled in, sniggered about, and loved to bits though no-one ever said it in a way that was crude or out of bounds. Apart from Mr Chapman who grumbled endlessly about standards but never complained about the extra income, everyone else seemed to love the show and it played to huge, satisfied audiences.
Who doesn’t love a bit of beautifully costumed smut, after all.
Add to the standard classical works and the annual school musical a wide range of productions featuring exciting innovation, works such as Light Show, Sphota, and We Cry, some festival winning work including Bruce Goodman’s short existential play The Chimney which won the New Zealand Theatre Federation national festival, and two real biggies outdoors in the school grounds, a spectacular Macbeth and Bruce Goodman’s lyrical dance theatre piece EarthDance. These works made happy waves with audiences and critics alike, but sadly there were no improved collegial relationships to celebrate. I suspect my working methods were disapproved of, methods which, to these tidy kiwis, must have seemed incurably messy. This, and the fact that the actors and stage crew really loved being the shows, certainly didn’t improved collegial relations.
Truth is, I was never going to win the popularity stakes at Linwood. Wrong side of the tracks, confident in my own ability, arrogant even, and a little bit weird, did not sit comfortably among the east Christchurch arty-farty conservatives. I even managed to totally piss my colleagues off by winning the school’s friendly Christmas golf tournament, so it was no real surprise that my contract was not renewed after its initial two years, a message texted to me while I was in London on exactly the day I was offered acting work with the RSC.
Ironic?
Former student and right-wing broadcaster Mike Hosking describes the school perfectly when he said, Linwood wasn’t a school you talked a lot about if you were part of ‘the set’ that took school seriously. Christ’s College was a serious school. If you went public, it was Christchurch Boys’ High.’ Unlike Mike, I’ve never suffered from postcode envy but at least Christ’s College has been true to its heraldic motto ‘Bene Tradita, Bene Servanda.’ Linwood with Kimihia: in pursuit of excellence, not so much.
Would I go back?
Nope.
Would the old school want me back?
I doubt it.
Rumour has it – and it is just a rumour – that the ghosts of Ted Lunn, Percy Hickling, Rod Harries, and Jim Orman got together ‘down below’ and organised two catastrophic earthquakes, two school name changes, and a temporary move to Cashmere High just to ensure that, even if I did think about it, I’d never ever find them in their ritzy new Te Aratai premises anyway.
Good luck to them, but they needn’t have bothered.
There was one plus though, in all those years.
Two actually.
Janice, and Venus.
I shocked everyone by getting School Certificate. Back in the day, to be granted School Certificate, the student had to achieve 200 marks out of four subjects with 30% in English a prerequisite. I had achieved 203 marks in four subjects – I only took four: English, General Science, Biology, and History. I managed 88% in English and not much in anything else.
Passed.
My 88% in English was the top equal grade in the school, equal with that of my friend Rupert Glover, son of poet Denis Glover. He was educated, smart, a good bugger from the right side of the tracks, not that Rupert cared because, if the craic was right and the wine was flowing, he was up for it. In later years our paths crossed when he was, first, my English tutor at The University of Canterbury and, many years later, my lawyer when I got into ‘a few bits of bother’.
Many an exotic Friday night was spent with Rupert and his fabulous wife Margaret supporting the wine industry to the best of our ability. I did my best, but they were my betters in all thing’s alcohol-steeped and plum coloured.
Given all in all, Rupert has always been an outstanding human.
Our 6th Form classes were determined by our English mark and, of course, Rupert swanned into 6B1. Initially, my name didn’t appear on any class list, and when I asked why, I was hurriedly inserted into the bottom class – 6B3. We had two levels of 6th form, ‘A’ was year 13, ‘B’ was year 12. So why was Rupert where he deserved to be, in the top form, and why was I, who scored the same mark in the bottom stream? When I asked (because it upset me) I was told that it was ‘because Miss Marr deserves a good student.’ I guess I was supposed to be honoured to be Miss Marr’s ‘good student’, but I wasn’t. I was pissed. This was 1962, sixty-three years ago and I’m still pissed. So pissed I’m boring you with it.
6B3 gathered in Miss Marr’s classroom on Day One and I didn’t know anyone. Not a soul. The class was made up of a couple of deaf kids, a few students waiting for recounts, a girl who was pregnant, two Chinese students who were in their mid-twenties, and me, age sixteen.
Oh, and two girls from Te Wai Pounamu Māori Girls College up the road who, like me, weren’t expected to pass and now found themselves in a new school with new students, none of whom made any effort to be friendly.
Except trainwreck me. I tried. I really tried.
For whatever reason, Day One 1962, was a crappy day for all of us kids and for no good reason.
I’d never knowingly met a Māori before, so this was big for me.
We talked a bit. Janice was friendly, light-skinned, freckles, reddish hair, from the Chatham Islands. I don’t think I knew where they were. Venus was painfully shy, with the darkest skin I’ve ever seen, hair so black it was blue, from Whakatane, and, to me, exotic. Both were smart, Venus more so, and they boarded at their school.
That was it really.
I hated school, resented Miss Marr, and hardly ever went to class. Sometimes I’d hunt Venus and Janice down and hang with them during the breaks. Not after school or weekends as they didn’t have that degree of freedom while living in the dorms at their school. Thanks to the intervention of teacher Mr Barry Eagle things changed for me and I got to the end of the year, had UE accredited, and was accepted for Teachers College.
So was Janice, and we became great mates for the next two years.
I will be eternally grateful to Mr Eagle and the faith he showed in me.
Jump forward forty or so years and I find that Janice had returned to the Chatham’s and married Cushla’s cousin.
Small world.
I’ve never been to the Chatham’s but, to segue back to the start of this piece, since 1997 I’ve travelled a bit. After fifty-two years of going nowhere, here’s where I’ve been:
Fiji
Hawaii
Canada
England
Scotland
Ireland
Wales
France
Netherlands
Denmark
Sweden
Norway
Germany
Switzerland
Italy
USA
Austria
Argentina
Spain
Australia
Malaysia
Thailand
Hong Kong
Singapore
Japan
Okinawa
China
Taiwan
Romania
Transylvania
Moldova
Qatar
Oman
Türkiye
New Zealand
In case you’d forgotten where this ramble started.
Truth is, after that first flight, I absolutely hated flying.
I hated heights anyway, but my fear of flying was on a whole other level. I avoided it wherever possible and would drive and take the ferry if the option was available. That, and the fact that I never really trusted that overseas actually existed. Even if it did exist and I went there, what if they didn’t speak English and they had weird currency and what about my career and getting a job and what if it’s too expensive and I’m so hopeless with maps I’d never find my way around and get lost and I would have to talk to people and there was the thing about flying and … it was much, much easier to just stay at home.
Then I won an award. I didn’t apply for it, I had no idea it existed, but someone put my name forward and I won.
The Inaugural Westpac Arts Excellence Award.
From memory there were four winners. Malcolm McNeil was one. Anthony Holcroft another. One other whose name I can’t remember, and me.
Lots of money to travel and study Shakespeare production overseas.
Shakespeare? Great!
Shit, overseas!
I banked the cheque, and then did nothing.
My friend Bruce Goodman, then a Marist priest, came to visit and conned me into going for a coffee. I went. After coffee he said he was going to Wellington and needed to book flights, so I toddled along with him to his travel agent, and he booked his flights to Whanganui-a Tara.
Then he said, ‘let’s book yours’, and, as anyone who knows Bruce will understand, there was no way I could get out of it. Christchurch to Auckland to Fiji to Hawaii to Toronto to New York to London, and accommodation – two nights in a hotel in Knightsbridge – after that I was on my own.
Oh, and return flights the same way in reverse.
Long story short, I hated the flight from Ōtautahi Christchurch to Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, the one to Fiji was worse – relentless turbulence – and then something happened, and I started to really enjoy the experience.
Epiphany.
180 degrees turn around and a new happiness I’d not ever expected,
Now … I’m up for anywhere, and anything!
Uzbekistan? In December?
Onto it!
dykiegirl 