Gary McCormick: Radio host, presenter and poet...

Poetry, satire and music were the mainstays of Gary McCormick’s life before he took his unique world view to television. His on-screen career began with 1987 documentary Raglan by the Sea. McCormick's best-known TV series was Heartland, which ran for four years. McCormick teamed up with fellow poet Sam Hunt for 1995 documentary The Roaring Forties Tour, and returned to his home town of Porirua to host 1998 documentary The Bay Boys.

In this ScreenTalk, McCormick talks about:

• The pleasure of working on Heartland
• The challenge of interviewing a Rastafarian community on the East Coast
• Playing tricks on director Sean Duffy on Heartland
• Performing poetry with Sam Hunt for The Roaring Forties Tour, and Hunt getting told off by his mother Betty Hunt on stage
• Dodging a knife attack with Sam Hunt
• Taking a nostalgic look back at his home town in The Bay Boys
• The on-set shower and other quirks of McCormick Country
• Being mistaken for singer Midge Marsden 

This video was first uploaded on 1 April 2010, 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