Shocking or touching

Press, 30 August 1986, Page 19

Shocking or touching

“Jewel’s Dari” may shock some television viewers, but that is not the reason why Peter Wells chose to direct tomorrow’s half-hour film in the “About Face” series of independent New Zealand drama.

“I chose it simply because it’s a touching story about two outsiders who come together for support in a difficult situation,” says Wells.

The two outsiders are a transvestite, Mandy (Richard Hanna), and a transexual, Jewel (Georgina Beyer).

“Their lives are not so strange,” says Wells. “It’s always been a facet of urban life here, it’s just that we haven’t seen much evidence of it on film or television. “Jewel’s Dari” crosses the unspoken boundaries about what gender lines are, in my experience, people can either cope

with that, or they’re absolutely incensed.”

The drama — adapted from Anne Kennedy’s story, which won the B.N.Z. Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award in 1983 — does not dwell on sexuality, says Wells. The intimacy in “Jewel’s Dari” is more the detail of two extraordinary people coping in a hostile world. It screens on One tomorrow (Sunday) at 10.15 p.m.