Standing Room Only for Sunday 22 May 2022

12:16  Film Sound panel

 

New Zealand-made screen sound and music received a BAFTA, one Emmy, two APRA Silver Scrolls, two NZ TV Awards and three Golden Reels for work on film and gaming last year alone.

But members of the Screen Music and Sound Guild are issuing a stark warning about the future of the industry, one they say is under appreciated and under resourced.

Lynn Freeman speaks with Neil Aldridge who's a Lecturer at Te Rewa O Puanga - the Massey's School of Music and Creative Media Production and prolific screen composer Graeme Revell who has worked on American TV shows Gotham and CSI: Miami, and movies including Sin City and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

Also part of the conversation is John Mckay, chief executive of POW Studios and a committee member of the NZ Screen Music and Sound Guild..
 

12:34  Wellington Chamber Orchestra turns 50

 

Wellington's Chamber Orchestra is about to celebrate its 50th birthday with a flourish.

The amateur orchestra has launched many professional careers over five decades, and also has musicians who've been in its ranks for most of that time.

Lynn Freeman caught up with conductor Rachel Hyde and cellist Gary Wilby, currently rehearsing for the big celebratory concert.

The Wellington Chamber Orchestra plays its 50th anniversary concert on Saturday May 28 at the Alan Gibbs Centre at Wellington College.  Among the highlights will be Gareth Farr's Terra Incognito and The Planets by Gustav Holst.
 

 

12:45  Pat Greenfield 

Taranaki's stunning coast is also one of the fastest eroding coastlines in the world. 

Since 2000, photographer Pat Greenfield has walked it, documenting the impact of storms, earthquakes and erosion.

She calls it a photographic and scientific journey of discovery - and it's been a sobering one for her.  For example two of the rock stack formations that she calls the Three Sisters and Four Brothers, have been decimated by storms.

A selection of her photographs of the Tongapōrutu Coastline are on show at New Plymouth's Puke Ariki.

Pat explains to Lynn Freeman why this stretch of northern Taranaki coastline means so much to her.

Pat Greenfield's exhibition Impermanence - The Tongaporutu Coastline, A twenty year odyssey has just opened at Puke Ariki Library in New Plymouth.

 

1:10 At The Movies

This week Simon Morris reviews Operation Mincemeat, Haute Couture and Nobody has to know.

 

1:33  A new play about the aftermath of the conquest of Mt Everest

 

It's one of the best-known - and often-told - stories in our history: Sir Ed Hillary and Sherpa Norgay Tenzing's momentous climb to the top of Mt Everest on May 29th, 1953.

But Matt Kambic's new play The Sherpa & the Beekeeper - Summit on Everest explores the downside of fame and other long term effects - both good and bad - on not only the mountain's conquerers, but also the local Nepalese people.

When Hamilton's Meteor Theatre did a shout-out for new scripts for its Boil-up programme, Matt sent in his script.  Now, after a few Covid-related curve balls, it's about to go on stage.

The Raglan based writer and director told Lynn Freeman that the play comes from a lifetime of fascination with the Everest story.

The Sherpa & the Beekeeper - Summit on Everest premieres at the Meteor Theatre in Kirikiriroa/ Hamilton on Wednesday May the 25th.
 

 

 

1:47  The launch of a literary festival specifically for  Māori writers 

Rotorua is hosting a literary festival specifically for Māori writers that the organisers hope will in turn encourage Māori readers.

Kupu: Ngā Ringa Tuhituhi will celebrate past and present Māori writers, with a view that many generations will tell their stories.

On the Kupu board is Robyn Bargh who's a long time champion of Māori literature, including her involvement with the HUIA publishing house. 
 
Among the list of invited writers are Patricia Grace, this year's Ockham Book Award winner Whiti Hereaka, Becky Manawatu, and Shilo Kino whose book The Pōrangi Boy won The Young Adult Book of the year at the 2021 Children and Young Adult NZ Book Awards 

In fact Lynn Freeman discovers that Shilo was very much behind getting the Kupu Festival off the ground. 

Kupu: Ngā Ringa Tuhituhi will start on the 12th of June in Rotorua.

 

2:06 The Laugh Track - Kid Sister's Simone Nathan

 

It's astonishing how rarely the New Zealand Jewish community has been represented in comedy.  It's certainly not the case in the United States where every second comedy writer and performer - Jerry Seinfeld, Adam Sandler, Sarah Silverman, Seth Rogen, Jon Stewart, Joan Rivers - seems to be Jewish.

Well finally the drought is over with TVNZ's new sitcom Kid Sister.

The content of Kid Sister, written by and starring Simone Nathan, may be familiar - Jewish families are a staple of TV comedy..   Just not the accent.  

So how did Kid Sister come to be, and frankly, asks Lynn Freeman, why has it taken so long?  Simone Nathan's our guest on the Laugh Track, and her picks include Monty Python, Jerry Seinfeld, Kate Berlant and John Early and the Flight of the Conchords.  

Kid sister plays on TVNZ On Demand from May the 26th.   

 

 

 

2:26  A blend of poetry and paintings celebrate the miraculous

Small domestic miracles, from a sleeping baby and walking along the beach to the promise of fruit are examined in words and pictures in a book called Bordering on Miraculous 

Saskia Leek and Lynley Edmeades have worked on the fourth in the kōrero series helmed by writer Lloyd Jones.

He brings together artists and writers to colloborate on books that blend poetry and paintings. 

Saskia explained to Lynn Freeman that initially she'd been paired with Bill Manhire. 

Bordering on Miraculous is published by Massey University Press. 
 

2:40  Writer Mahyar Amouzegar examines gifts from the gods

Eight interlinked stories of ordinary people whose lives are touched by the gods make up a new collection by Iranian/American/Kiwi writer Mahyar Amouzegar. 

The Hubris in an Empty Hand is his fourth book.   Some of the characters understand they've received - or are in the presence of - a gift from a god. Others are oblivious.

Friendships and relationships are tested, and those who receive a gift to do good don't always know what to do with it.  They can find themselves addicted to the ability, and unwilling to do what must be done to keep it alive and pass it on to another person.

Mahyar reads from the collection and talks to Lynn Freeman.   The Hubris of an Empty Hand was published by University of New Orleans Press.

 

2:49 Carole Brungar's Vietnam saga reaches its end

A five-novel series about the impact of the Vietnam war on veterans and their families has just wrapped up with the release of Carole Brungar's book The Return.In the last book, she's thinking about the experiences of the orphans of the Vietnam war, many of whom were removed from the country. 

In The Return, Jackie Coles fulfills a promise to her stepfather to return to her homeland of Vietnam to find her birth family.

It's not great timing for her budding romance with Jeff, whose family was also impacted by the Vietnam War.

"Satisfying but at times traumatic" is how Carole describes to Lynn Freeman the last few years interviewing, researching and writing the series.

The Return by Carole Brungar is self-published.

 

3:06 Drama at 3 -  Part One of Four flat whites in Italy by Sir Roger Hall

In the first of a two part adaptation for radio of Roger Hall’s successful stage play, comical calamities befall four retired Kiwi travellers as they negotiate the pitfalls of an Italian OE, starting in Venice and Rome.

 

Music played in this show

Artist: The Contacts
Song: Fabulous Fifty jingle
Composer: Lindsay
Album: N/A
Label: David Lindsay promo contacts
Played at: 12.16

Artist: The Cocteau Twins
Song: Fifty fifty clown
Composer:  Cocteau Twins
Album:  Heaven or Las Vegas
Label:  4AD
Played at: 12.31

Artist: The Tubes
Song: Attack of the fifty foot woman
Composer: Anderson-Cotten-Prince
Album: Completion Backwards Principle
Label: BGO
Played at: 12.58

Artist: The Doubtful Sounds
Song: Fifty million Elvis fans can't be wrong
Composer: Doubtful Sounds
Album:  Pop Album
Label: Doubtful Sounds
Played at: 1.07

Artist:  Suzanne Vega
Song: Fifty fifty chance
Composer: Vega
Album: Days of Open Hand
Label:  Universal
Played at: 1.44

Artist:  The Tragically Hip
Song: 50 mission cap
Composer: Tragically Hip
Album: Yer Favourites
Label: Universal
Played at: 1.58

Artist:  Sophie Tucker
Song: Fifty million Frenchman can't be wrong
Composer: Fisher-Raskin-Rose
Album: The Great
Label: Jasmine
Played at: 2.05

Artist: Iris Dement
Song: 50 miles of elbow room
Composer: McGee
Album: Infamous angel
Label:  Warner
Played at: 2.58

Artist:  Paul Simon
Song:  50 ways to leave your lover
Composer:  Simon
Album: Greatest hits
Label:  Columbia
Played at: 3.58