Peter Muxlow

Peter Muxlow was born in Christchurch in 1942. His parents ran dairies, and the family moved suburbs a few times. He didn’t relish Hagley College. At 13, the self-described nerd was trying to make speakers from concrete pipe. When a friend joined the NZ Broadcasting Service as a radio technician, Muxlow followed suit.

In 1962 the NZBS became the NZ Broadcasting Corporation; Muxlow asked producer Brian Bell if he could transfer into television, which had recently begun downunder. Bell warned him he’d be "starting at the bottom" again. Muxlow learnt the ropes at Christchurch station CHTV-3 on gardening and religious shows. One early producing and directing credit was As I See It, which won controversy for daring to mix comedy and religion. Vicar Bob Lowe presented; he later recalled 300 letters at the end of the first season — most were complimentary, apart from 18 unsigned ones which "said we were blaspheming and would go to hell".

Muxlow had a stint producing regional news round up Town and Around, but didn’t enjoy it. In 1969 he struck upon a ratings winner. Documentary The Carmelites peered behind the walls of a Carmelite monastery, a heavily closeted 400-year-old order of nuns. Reporter Bernard Smyth, a practising Catholic, played intermediary between the nuns and a fascinated public. Muxlow remembers organising a crane to secure some overhead shots; afterwards a few daring nuns were spotted climbing aboard.

In the late 60s Muxlow joined forces with musical director Brian Marston and produced Moving, a big band jazz show performed live in a studio. In 1970 he made kids folk music programme Ah Dee Doo Ah Dee Doo Dah Day, then chose Christchurch's Hagley Park band rotunda as his location for Folk Scene. Preferring to "create an event" and capture it, over filming musicians in a studio, Muxlow flew in folk talent like Val Murphy and Annie Whittle to entertain the crowd. His original approach extended to the credits, which were chalked onto the rotunda floor (these photos are all that remain of the series). In the same period, TV special Presenting Dinah Lee scored him his first Feltex Award for Best Entertainment show.

Muxlow invited musical director Brian Marston back on board for Popco. For Muxlow the show was "a reaction" against staples like Happen Inn, which had performers miming overseas hits. This time vocalists like Beaver and Rob Guest sang live to backing tracks. Muxlow appreciated the energy of the young production team, and has special praise for Marston. "This guy was working in the accounts department. He listened to the tracks we needed and wrote the score — that’s the kind of talent they had in the back room."

In 1972 Muxlow picked up his second Feltex Award, for the final outing of the Loxene Golden Disc Awards. The Christchurch Town Hall was the location, and band Blerta were contenders. "You knew when their bus turned up — we looked outside, and their washing was hanging out everywhere."

Muxlow’s first major drama credit was Richard Pearse (1975). The one-off biopic of the Canterbury-born inventor was written by Roger Simpson (Hunter’s Gold). The shot list required some DIY. To get key shots of Pearse flying, a prop plane was attached atop a van, with a cameraman speeding alongside in a mini. Muxlow picked up the Feltex for Best Programme, and Martyn Sanderson took Best Actor.

Muxlow then spent six months at Crawford Productions in Australia, studying script development, before returning to direct several episodes of Close to Home (including the second). The Avalon soap was a hotbed of 1970s Wellington talent, and although Muxlow didn’t warm to the soap format — "it’s a specialised form of television" — the show introduced him to legendary producer Tony Isaac and writer Michael Noonan. Later Muxlow took over the producing role from Isaac. 

Over the next decade Muxlow would produce and direct many classic TV dramas. First came Kiwi-Australian award-winner Moynihan, with Ian Mune as a plucky unionist navigating workplace dramas in Wellington. Horseracing tale The Losers, adapted from a Maurice Gee story, won raves from critic Barry Shaw for its tension and "quite masterly direction". Then came two episodes of the monolith that was The Governor.

For The Lame Seagull' episode, Muxlow was reunited with Martyn Sanderson, who played Scottish general Sir Duncan Cameron. The episode dramatised four key Land War battles, including Ōrākau Pā and Gate Pā, and required busloads of extras. Muxlow recalls the queasy early morning drive out in the back of a camera van to the main location, a patch of scrubby Water Board land near Upper Hutt. "Everyone knew I had to do the daily briefing before that drive because after it I’d be recovering in a tent somewhere..."

Muxlow describes the exhausting shoot in 2005 book Ourselves in Primetime- A History of New Zealand Television Drama. He mentions "returning to Avalon at midnight, our gumboots just covered in mud. There was a complaint about the mud being brought into the building and I remember confronting one of the executives behind that and asking 'why don’t you come and find out how hard it is to be out there?'"

The entire production was under the pump. After Muxlow was challenged by producer Tony Isaac about going two hours into overtime, "I just looked at him, I was absolutely exhausted and said: 'Tony I’m going to do it again. We’re so far in the shit now it doesn’t really matter. The only thing that matters is to make it as good as we can.' It’s the mechanics of filmmaking. If you have 60 or 80 people in there you have to make a choice whether to do overtime, or bring them all back the next day."

The Governor was appointment viewing and won the 1978 Feltex Award for Best Drama. But the controversy surrounding the production had a long tail. In 1979 Muxlow was lined up to produce Coal Flat, a Michael Noonan script adapted from a Bill Pearson novel. West Coast locations had been chosen and there were hopes that Sam Neill might take the lead role, but Muxlow felt he couldn't do justice to the story within the allowed budget. With no more funds forthcoming, the plug was pulled.

Muxlow worked with Governor writer Keith Aberdein again in 1978, when he directed two episodes of Rachel, a "moody psychological drama" starring ex-pat actor Barbara Ewing.

Muxlow is especially proud of You Stand Indicted (1981), a docudrama about the New Zealand justice system. It follows a man arrested for assault (Simon O’Connor) as he progresses from police station to court. Lawyers and ex police officers took part in the fictional case. You Stand Indicted was later used in police training.  

Muxlow directed a powerhouse cast in The Protestors (1982). Rowley Habib's play about a Māori land occupation featured Jim Moriarty, Merata Mita and entertainer Billy T James. Muxlow recalls standing up at the first rehearsal and saying "I’m a Pākehā guy, so you’re going to have to help me". He was impressed at the ease with which James tackled dramatic roles.

In 1984 Muxlow produced Keith Aberdein's urban drama Inside Straight. Roy Billing starred as a seasoned taxi driver showing a newbie (Phillip Gordon) the ins and outs of red light Wellington. The series was shot in seven months with fast turnarounds. On occasion the fire brigade was brought in to hose down the streets and add a noir feel. Inside Straight picked up the 1985 Feltex Award for Best Drama.

Despite steady ratings, Muxlow was invited to produce and help develop a new urban drama to replace it. Roche (1985) harked back to the working class dramas of the 1970s (although one reviewer nicknamed it The Dukes of Pukehazard). The series followed the fortunes of three brothers and their family trucking business. In preparation, writers Dean Parker, Greg McGee and Simon O’Connor joined real life drivers in their trucks. They got more than they bargained for one day when a back cab disconnected, requiring emergency manoeuvres. "That was handy…Dean used that in an episode."

The pressures on TVNZ's drama department were acute. After one season, Roche went the way of Inside Straight. In 1986 Muxlow was a director and relieving producer for Open House (featuring Frank Whitten), one of the final 1980s dramas to explore social issues; it was also a rare one to feature a Māori whānau.

The new climate at TVNZ dented Muxlow’s passion for making television. He was disappointed when country music programme Dixie Chicken was canned by management, without an explanation why. 

In 1987 Muxlow tackled the sensitive issue of teenage suicide,as director/producer of documentary Nothing to Live For?. The production ran a telephone referral  line during and after it went to air, a practise now commonplace.

Muxlow made a rare dip back into current affairs with documentary Fiji - A Year After the Coup (1988). Reporter Ian Johnstone was dogged in his pursuit of an interview with coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka, and succeeded. Muxlow was having trouble with the edit and showed it to TVNZ’s Michael Scott-Smith, who "always knew what to do with things you'd shot, and never complained about what you hadn’t". After watching the face to face interview, Scott-Smith told Muxlow "you've got it — that’s the programme".

In the early 1990s Muxlow formed company Media Connections with Dougal Stevenson, Bob Parker and Islay McLeod. Corporate videos kept him paid rather than fulfilled. He gave occasional lectures on TV production at acting school Toi Whakaari, and in 1993 contributed to Gibson Group’s magazine arts series The Edge.

In 1996 Muxlow co-directed his last documentary, with Michael Heath. Between Two Worlds follows Kiwi composer Gareth Farr as he finishes postgraduate studies in composition and percussion, at the Eastman School of Music in New York.

In the late 1990s Muxlow returned to his first love, and started Dome Speakers, a company specialising in making speakers. In his retirement he took up glassmaking, and sells his work in Wellington galleries.

Profile written by Gabe McDonnell; published on 30 November 2022 

Sources include
Peter Muxlow
Dome Speakers website. Accessed 30 November 2022
Robert Boyd Bell, New Zealand Television- The First 25 Years, ,(1985, Reed Methuen)
Trisha Dunlealy, Ourselves in Primetime, (2005, Auckland University Press)
Bob Lowe, That's Me Without the Tie (Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs, 1974)
Barry Shaw, 'As blood-curdling as ever' (Review of The Losers) - The Auckland Star, 18 December 1977
Rosa Shiels, 'Popco' AudioCulture website. Loaded 21 August 2020. Accessed 30 November 2022