Loony Laurie and the Coconut King

Press, 6 April 1989, Page 19

Loony Laurie and the Coconut King

Chronicles of the weird, wacky and wonderful return in a fresh, new-look third series of “That’s Fairly Interesting” which brings a new line-up of presenters, and stories from around the Pacific.

Starting hard on the heels of the re-run of the popular second series, the new series of “T.F.1.” begins at 8 tonight on Two.

Produced by Communicado, an Auckland videoproduction company, “That’s Fairly Interesting” has been commissioned by Television New Zealand for a fourth series. Mark Leishman will front the new series and he will be working with Neil Roberts and two presenters, Juliet Monaghan and Khali Winitana.

On tonight’s first programme Khali Winitana meets Looney Laurie,

from Rotorua, who has a car that converts to a barrel roll cage — just for a joke he rolls it six times.

Juliet Monaghan encounters the Coconut King of the Cook Islands. Piri Puroto can shimmy up 50-metre coconut trees in 20 seconds.

While fishing for stories down south Neil Roberts managed to catch the man who holds the world record for opening oysters. After obtaining a special permit to get Bluff oysters ahead of season this dexterous Southlander attempts an out-of-season world record.

Meanwhile Mark Leishman went off to Australia where he discovered a rather special reform school, for parrots with problems. Story ideas keep flooding in and John Harris

says hundreds of people have written in.

“The philosophy of ‘T.F.I.’ is transportable, so we have extended the horizon of our stories to include Tonga, Samoa, Rarotonga and Australia as well as New Zealand,” he says. Juliet Monaghan, one of the show’s new faces, is an actor, dancer and acrobat. She and her theatre company, Dramadillo, wooed crowds and showed Kiwi talent at its best when they toured from Paris to Vancouver.

Khali Winitana, aged 19, the youngest presenter, is already a seasoned journalist. After finishing the Wairariki Polytechnic Journalism Course, she worked as a news reporter at the Auckland “Sun” and then went on to work as a TV researcher for “Te Karere.”