New show for comedy team

Press, 31 August 1989, Page 6

New show for comedy team

By

NIGEL MALTHUS

TV3 will begin shooting its first location comedy show, in the South Island, on October 1. Written by the well-known comedy team of David McPhail and Jon Gadsby, with the satirist A. K. Grant, the show is a development of an idea McPhail and Gadsby originally had while working for Television New Zealand.

A pilot of the show was done for TVNZ, but, since their move to TV3, it will now probably not be shown. Going under the working title of "Letter to Blanchie,” the show will run to 15 half-hour episodes. Shooting will take about five months, but the first episodes will screen as soon as TV3 begins broadcasting on November 27.

“McPhail and Gadsby are going to be one of our opening salvoes,” TV3’s director of network programming, Mr Kel Geddes, said last evening. “The sitcoms we’re developing with them are some of the best I’ve ever seen.”

Mr Geddes said that the show had changed in style,

shape and pace since the original pilot. Gadsby said that the show had “something there” that TV3 saw and TVNZ did not.

“It’s another example of TVNZ not knowing what’s right and wrong. They don’t know what they’re looking for,” said Mr Geddes. The show will star McPhail and Gadsby with Peter Rowley and other prominent actors in cameo roles. It will be directed by lan Mune. TV3 was confident of meeting its November 27 start date, although the first of its transmitters was not due to leave Japan — by sea — for another fortnight. All the transmitters for the main population centres, including Christchurch, were expected to be in place and broadcasting test signals by mid-November. Mr Geddes, who is visiting Christchurch, is confident of TV3 being a more-than-viable alternative to TVNZ, which he accuses of resting on its laurels. As an example Mr Geddes said that TVNZ first promoted “Eastenders” as what New Zealand wanted — but that was not the case; it was just what was available.