Fresh look at New Zealand

Press, 14 March 1984, Page 14

Fresh look at New Zealand

NZPA staff correspondent London The British television presenter, Glyn Christian, will return to New Zealand this month to make a documentary series on the new identity of the country he left 20 years ago. He plans to spend a month shooting six half-hour films for international television “in a very personal voyage of rediscovery.”

“I am returning to have a good look at the country 20 years after I left it to discover and identify the new identity of its people, using food as a way in,” he said. “The identity of New Zealand has changed dramatically over the last two decades, particularly in the trade view, with the advent of the Common Market and the country having to find new markets.”

Christian, a descendant of the Bounty mutineer, Fletcher Christian, said he and the Bristol-based film crew planned a broad run of New Zealand. “Sweeping the country from Bluff to Auckland and further north to show the combination of its people and food.” To illustrate dairy produce, he will visit Taranaki, Marlborough for the wine industry, and other parts of the country specifically con-

cerned with producing apples, pears and lamb as well as venison, oysters and other seafoods. Although Christian has made several trips back to New Zealand, he said he believed this would be the first time with “a chance to genuinely get back to grips with the country.” While filming for the series, which has the working title of “Glyn Christian’s New Zealand,” the film

crew from Serendipity Film Company will also make another film with a more tourist-style approach. Glyn Christian, best known for his present 8.8. C. breakfast time series, is also having four books about food and cooking published in Britain this year, including “Glyn Christian’s Delicatessen Cookbook” and “Cheeses Around the World.”