Wide-ranging Hawes

Press, 26 September 1980, Page 11

Wide-ranging Hawes

"Yours For The Asking” (One) on Sunday deals with those who take to the stage, and those who stay behind the scenes — starting with the life of Rudall Hayward, a New Zealander who was a oneman film industry. Peter Hawes interviews the widow of this fascinating man, and shows his camera collection, in the Auckland museum. Viewers will also get a chance to see excerpts from his film, 'Te Kooti Trail.”

The opera singer, Oscar Natze, a New Zealander who died in 1950, is the next performer whose life is explored by Peter Hawes. He chats to the great bass’s widow about their life together and shows film clippings of the former blacksmith. Hawes also sits in a simulated audience, to listen to the singer perform in a Christchurch theatre. At another theatre in Christchurch Hawes takes a look behind the scenes

at the setting up of the scene for a play, and the making up of one of the actresses. From the present back to the past, as “Yours For The Asking” tells the story of Bully Hayes, an Arrowtown figure of the nineteenth century and as a finale Peter Hawes impresses with his imitation of the Great Pato, a man who played music with a personal wind instrument.