Joyful and Triumphant

Television (Full Length) – 1993

It's all here: life, love, greed, need, self-sacrifice, pyjamas, placemats and patience, 40 years of New Zealand society in an eggshell, fragile but whole, from the first beer to the last cup of tea.
– Denis Welch, reviewing the original play for The Listener, February 1992

I've nothing against Māoris, but these mixed marriages never work.
– George Bishop (Tony Barry)

I'm worried about the crackling.
– Rose Bishop (Denise O'Connell)

I don't know whether it's right having the baby Jesus lying on a bale labelled 'Merino Cross' ...
– Alice Warner (Bridget Armstrong)

The play was a hit at the Wellington Festival when it was first performed in 1992, winning multiple awards including best writer and best director. The cast and crew then travelled to Australia and London, showing the incredible work by the late Robert Lord to international audiences.
– Independent Herald article on the original 1992 cast of Joyful and Triumphant, 23 March 2016, page 3

I own the roof, I own the floor and I own the dunny. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'd have thought all of this ownership might have afforded me certain rights: one of them being a nice long leisurely pee.
– George Bishop (Tony Barry)

Have been thinking all day about a new play set during a New Zealand Christmas. Heat. Hot food. Christmas pudding. Family. Three or four generations.
– A diary note by playwright Robert Lord for 21 November 1981, in 2023 book Robert Lord Diaries, page 140