David McPhail

David McPhail was a pioneering figure in the history of Kiwi TV comedy. Working alongside Jon Gadsby, his longtime comic partner in crime, he impersonated Sir Rob Muldoon in landmark sketch shows A Week of It and McPhail & Gadsby. Later McPhail starred in the Barry Crump-style yarns of Letter to Blanchy, and as an alarmingly straight-talking teacher in Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby. He died overnight on 14 May 2021. 

When I proposed it to some of my superiors, they thought I was insane ... I was told quite frankly by one, 'you have to understand, David. You're young and you're energetic but you don't know the facts of life, and one of the facts of life is New Zealanders do not have a sense of humour. They are very, very staunch sensible people and they don't like laughing, and they don't like laughing at themselves.' David McPhail on trying to get comedy show A Week of It off the ground, in his extended interview for 2019 TV series Funny As: The Story of New Zealand Comedy