A young old boy returns

Press, 2 August 1977, Page 24

A young old boy returns

From JOHN ROSS, London Piers Nimmo — aged nine, the youngest old boy Kings School, Auckland, has ever had, will return to the school this week for a three-month sojourn. But he has been warned that throwing fruit, flowers, and cutlery out of the twelfth-floor window of a well-known Auckland hotel will not be tolerated this time. Of course Piers was only four when he was last in Auckland five years ago with his famous father — the British actor Derek Nimmo — too young to realise, perhaps, that the goodies in the hotel were for his mother, who had been in hospital.

He and the hotel manager’s son. according to Mr Nimmo, not only dropped the produce from a great height but also barricaded themselves in the hotel room, thus ensuring min imum interference from troublesome adults. At the time, Mr Nimmo was starring in “Charlie Girl” with Dame Anna Neagle, and Piers was accepted at Kings under age. When he left three

months later, the headmaster, Mr Pengelly, presented him with an old boys’ tie. “It was the first time he had seen a headmaster with a mortar board and gown.” Mr Nimmo recalled, “and he got it into his head that this was batman . . . Derek Nimmo, together with his wife, Primi Townsend, Michael Walker, and as yet unnamed actors from New Zealand and Australia, arrived in Auckland to begin production of “Why Not Stay for Breakfast?” — a comedy which broke boxoffice records when it played in Australia recently. Mr Nimmo plays the part of a “frightfully boring, stuffy, dreary civil servant” who falls in love with a pretty hippy girl, played by Primi Townsend. For Derek Nimmo, it is almost a homecoming. He discovered on his last extended visit that he has relatives everywhere. He is related to the Gabites family, four members of which arrived in Timaru in the 1840 s. Among his relations are

Mr James Berry, the stamp and coin designer; •Mr Paul Gabites, a former New Zealand Ambassador to France; and Dr Gabites, head of the Wellington Meteorological Service. “I kept on bumping into them almost everywhere 1 went on my last trip,” he said. “Even a stage hand at the Auckland theatre turned out to be a Gabites.”

An ardent admirer of New Zealand, Mr Nimmo said he thought the Hauraki Gulf was “one of the loveliest stretches of water in the whole wide world” and he speaks glowingly of Lake Taupo’s rainbow trout, the South Island scenery, and the tremendous response by New Zealanders to the telethons.

He had always got on well in New Zealand, he said. “New Zealanders have been very fortunate. For many years they had only one television channel, and most people had only two choices either watching me in ‘Oh, Brother’ or ‘All Gas and Gaiters’, or talking to the wife.”

The New Zealand sense of humour, he said, was

very similar to that in Britain. In both countries people enjoyed laughing at failures. “They feel that trying is as important as succeeding —and as most of the characters 1 portray fall into that category it gives you a measure of acceptance in New Zealand.” Asked whether he would ultimately like to retire to New Zealand, he said, “I doubt it, although I would always hope to visit. My links really are European, and in the theatre one never does retire. “One of the nice things about being an actor is that you are still as acceptable as an old man as you are as a young man. “People write jolly good parts for old men these days, and they go on for a long time. “I would like to visit New Zealand as an elderly actor, and wander round. I hope to play some of the wonderful parts these people write for old gentlemen.” , "Why Not Stay for Breakfast?” which opens in Auckland on August 11, will also play in Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, and Palmerston North.