Shortland Street: An NZ TV drama legend...

Interview – 2014

Produced by South Pacific Pictures for TV2, serial drama Shortland Street has screened for more than 30 years since its birth in 1992. It has won awards, sold internationally and become a part of the New Zealand landscape and pop culture. A who's who of New Zealand acting talent, writers, directors and producers have worked on it.

In this special edition of ScreenTalk, some of the show's stalwarts reflect on their Shortland St days, and on the show's importance to NZ and our screen industry.

Those interviewed include:

Actors Angela Bloomfield, Geraldine Brophy, Danielle Cormack, Peter Elliott, Michael Galvin, Paul Gittins, Theresa Healey, Ian Hughes, Pua Magasiva,Robyn Malcolm, Elizabeth McRae, Temuera Morrison Craig Parker and Stelios Yiakmis
Director and/or producers Chris Bailey, Simon Bennett, John Callen, Murray Keane and writer turned producer Steven Zanowski
Scriptwriters Judy Callingham, Rachel Lang and Gavin Strawhan.

This video was first uploaded on 6 January 2014, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside

I think that people were quite unused to hearing New Zealand accents, and also because it had quite a lot of young people in it, I think it was the first time that some people had actually heard genuine Kiwi accents on the tele. We're talking early days really, before the rise of reality television
– Storyliner Rachel Lang on negative public reaction to Kiwi accents in the early days of Shortland Street