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The Spinoff
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
Review: Roger Hall's End of Summer Time knows it audience
Sam Brooks reviews the new play from New Zealand's most successful playwright. Roger Hall's new comedy End of Summer Time is all about Dickie Hart. The character, returning from two earlier plays (C'mon Black and You Gotta Be Joking!) is a retired farmer who moves from Wellington to an apartment block in Takapuna with his wife to be closer to his grandkids. He's very much set in his conservative ways, not especially interested in new ways of thinking, and definitely not new ways of living life. He is pitched as a loveable curmudgeon, but your mileage might vary on how loveable he is. The comedy on display in Auckland Theatre Company's production of End of Summer Time is as broad as the ASB Waterfront stage, which is to say that it's pretty authentic to the Hall's creation; these aren't dad jokes, these are granddad jokes. End of Summer Time is a reflection of a very specific lens on Auckland, in that Dickie Hart's idea of South Auckland probably means 'south of Smith and Caugheys' (RIP). Hart has other ideas you might associate with a man of his demographic; he has thoughts about the attractive woman who lives in his building, the idea of learning reo Māori (that joke got more winces than laughs), and the very basic concept of veganism. None of these thoughts are surprising, and this allows Hall a very broad canvas to paint on; we can feel the punchlines coming in our bodies before we even hear them. Andrew Grainger, an ATC mainstay and favourite, does great work. He has to carry a near two-hour show, and with a fairly minimal set, hold a spell over the audience. He also has to marry two competing, conflicting, sides of Dickie Hart. He is both showman and grump. He makes jokes but refuses to be made a joke of. It is a testament to Grainger's charm – which softens some of Hart's rougher takes on modern society – and craft – which brings a clownish physicality that doesn't necessarily exist on the page – that End of Summer Time works. He's an ideal match for Hall's comedy: Hall loads the gun, Grainger fires it. Throughout the show's first act, you can feel how surgically Hall has peppered the show with jokes – certain pockets laugh at the sports jokes, others at the difficulties of finding your way back to a car in the Civic Theatre carpark, others the reality of driving up Takapuna's Lake Road. Then comes the interval. While an interval is likely a logistical and economic reality, it does End of Summer Time a disservice. The first act cliffhanger – which I won't spoil here, but is signalled fairly early on in the show – drops as heavily as the literal curtain that it cues. It also completely breaks the spell that Grainger has on the audience; we're allowed to leave the space, talk amongst ourselves, and essentially, judge the production before it has even finished. This is especially jarring because of the huge tonal shift that occurs after the interval. While the first act plays as close to a stand-up set as a solo play possibly can, the second act is an interrogation of loneliness, particularly the brand of loneliness experienced by older males who are used to being communicated at rather than embarking on that communication themselves. Grainger communicates Dickie Hart's reality as movingly in this act as he did comedically in the first act, but we're placed at a distance from him. The interval also allows us to make a judgement of Dickie Hart's character before this particular arc is completed, which is especially rough given where he actually lands – a place of relative enlightenment, a place where he is open to the world and its many differences, and even grateful for it. The interval also opens up the audience to discuss the odd tension at the core of End of Summer Time. It's important to acknowledge in this era of dubious media literacy that any playwright, and any fiction writer really, does not necessarily agree with or endorse everything their characters do and say. It would be a mistake to immediately assume that Dickie Hart is a reflection of Roger Hall, or a mouthpiece to communicate Hall's ideas and opinions in the world. The man has 47 plays to his name, reflecting a kaleidoscope of politics, social and otherwise – if they were all soapboxes of his opinions, it's unlikely he would be as successful as he has been. The context of End of Summer Time also makes this delineation difficult. Hart and Hall are demographically similar characters on the surface; cis straight men of retirement age who live on the North Shore. While it would be a mistake to assume that Hart and Hall share politics and views on the world, it's one that I can imagine an audience making. The fact that End of Summer Time is a solo show makes this even trickier; any voice that might push back against Hart's occasional sexism, occasional racism, and general lack of tolerance for what he's unfamiliar with is filtered through Hart himself, usually in a condescending voice. On opening night, full of people attending for free, and largely belonging to a younger demographic than the show's target audience, I detected quite a few winces at some of Hart's comments. I wonder if those winces might be replaced by laughs in an audience of ticket-buyers, and whether they'll understand that Hall means for them to be the targets of the jokes, rather than have their worldview confirmed by them. When I profiled him earlier this month, Hall said that the new generation has a tendency to use the stage as a pulpit for their politics. 'Come along and you'll be better informed and your opinion will change on whatever issue it is. That's not necessarily what it's for – or entertaining!' Every piece of art contains the politics of its creator, however, intentionally or not. Even if the piece of art is meant solely for entertainment, it is the product of a subjective mind, with its own way of seeing the world. Hall's work, including End of Summer Time, is no different. His plays reflect an understanding of New Zealand that is specific, if not unique, to him. I truly believe that End of Summer Time is more of a critique of Dickie Hart than an endorsement, but I spent far too much of the show wondering if the method of delivery softens that critique to the point of dullness. But look, Hall knows his audience; he's been writing for them for half a century, and they've shown up in droves in turn. They have grown up with him, from the office workers of Glide Time, to the middle-aged friends of Social Climbers, to the retirees of Last Legs. Broadly speaking, these people have mortgages, not landlords. You might assume, then, that this audience doesn't want to be challenged. Perhaps they don't. End of Summer Time might be for an audience of Dickie Harts. They exist in our world, walking down our supermarket aisles, and voting in our elections. I can imagine them laughing at many of the jokes, even the ones that brush against the lines of racism, sexism, and general intolerance, if not outright disdain. Inside this show, conservative in both form and delivery, he actually puts up a challenge for that audience. If Dickie Hart can change, if he can look a little bit wider, and a little bit more kindly at the diverse city he lives in, can't they? It's a noble, if idealistic challenge, and I hope that those Dickie Harts can hear it underneath the laughter.
NZ Herald
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Hart to Hart: The latest actors to play one of Sir Roger Hall's great characters compare notes
Andrew Grainger (left) and Ross Gumbley play Dickie Hart in different versions of Sir Roger Hall's The End of Summer. Photos / Supplied In a possibly historic moment in NZ theatre, Andrew Grainger and Ross Gumbley will be men alone, on stage at opposite ends of the country playing the same guy in the same one-man play at the same time. Dickie Hart first came to life on stage nearly 30 years ago in C'mon Black, a play inspired by Roger Hall's visit to South Africa among a party of All Black supporters for the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Upon his return and thinking the team's defeat in the notorious final had killed his idea for a play about the jaunt, Hall wrote a piece for the Listener about being there. But writing that story inspired C'mon Black, a solo show featuring Dickie, the rugby-fanatic cow cockie easing into retirement who finds on his travels that the outside world is a complicated place. With Timothy Bartlett in the role, it premiered at Dunedin's Fortune Theatre. Dozens of Hall's plays had been the box office lifeblood of the southern company until it foundered in 2018. But it was a Wellington actor, the late Grant Tilly, who played many Hall characters on stage and screen, who picked up the C'mon Black ball and ran with it. He toured the play all around in New Zealand and took it to London. He got the benefit of Hall editing the monologue after its Dunedin debut. 'Good friends told me the script was too long and too preachy, so I hacked a lot out of it,' Hall tells the Listener. Back then, Hall wasn't thinking there would be a Dickie Hart trilogy – 'Hard enough to look ahead to the end of the play'. But now there is. You Gotta Be Joking debuted in 2013 and had Hart and wife Glenda shifting to a townhouse in Wellington. And now End of Summer Time, in which the couple have moved to Auckland – the one place Dickie said he'll never live – to be near their grandkids. When the new play starts – it's set between 2019 and 2023 when Dickie is in his early 70s – they, like Hall, are living in an apartment near Takapuna Beach. But that's as close to home as the latest work gets to its author. 'There are often many parallels between me and my characters. Move along; nothing to read into this.' End of Summer Time may be about Dickie being a fish out of water, stranded on Takapuna Beach, in Auckland traffic, suffering apartment bodycorp politics, and worse. But this City of Sails tale premiered at Wellington's Circa Theatre last year and came back for an encore season in April. Circa stalwart Gavin Rutherford played Dickie, having first performed him in a 2011 revival of C'mon Black, timed for that year's RWC. Hall wasn't involved in the Wellington End of Summer Time production but he liked it. 'Gavin's performance was magic. For me and for everyone else in the audience.' Sir Roger Hall: "There are often many parallels between me and my characters. Move along; nothing to read into this." Photo / Supplied Now Auckland Theatre Company and The Court Theatre in Christchurch are staging simultaneous productions. Hall has had two plays in production at the same time before, but it's been a while. 'During the giddy days of Glide Time there were two productions of that, at least, and similarly with Middle-Age Spread. It was enjoyable but I always had to make sure I had put enough money aside to pay for provisional tax. This was an era when the IRD expected you to estimate your income for the following year and pay tax on it. I pointed out this was impossible for me to do since I didn't know that far ahead how many productions there would be.' Yes, in a possibly historic moment in New Zealand theatre, two blokes are playing the same guy in the same one-man play at the same time. Well, more or less – Andrew Grainger, a familiar face on the Auckland stage since arriving from the UK in 2007, will be in the ATC production for 20 performances at the ASB Theatre from June 17. Ross Gumbley, Court Theatre's former artistic director and now artistic adviser, will start his 51-show run in the Court's intimate Wakefield Family Front Room four days later. Each man will deliver some 10,000 words in every performance. On a late Thursday afternoon, after each putting in a long day's rehearsal a couple of weeks before opening night, both actors join the Listener via Zoom. Gentlemen, welcome to the Dickie Hart group therapy session. Ross Gumbley: I've certainly never done anything like this before. In fact, Andrew, I think the last time you and I met was when you auditioned for The 39 Steps. Andrew Grainger: Goodness me, that was a long time ago … I hadn't been over here that long. Doing a Roger Hall play with a character of this particular seniority, do you have to age up for it? RG: Well, I'm a little insulted, you had to ask [laughing]. There was a quizzical tone in your voice. I can't speak for Andrew, who looks ridiculously undercast. I mean, I'm only 12 years off his age … the play takes place in a sort of a zone between 71 and 75. I think you have to cast it that way because of the sheer stamina required… AG: Yeah. RG: …to keep this piece driving right through to the end. Andrew, you're much more match-fit than me. I think I've done three, four plays since 2006. So the first week of rehearsal has been … I've been sleeping well. Let's put it that way. AG: You're right. It is exhausting, especially at this stage, when you're really searching in your head for what's next, and the change because you've got to remember what leads into what. But as far as age is concerned, I might be too young, but you can't get wrapped up in that because if you start playing 'old man' too much, it becomes … people are here to listen to the story. RG: Yeah. It's the oddest thing to rehearse a comedy. When the audience isn't there, they're the other character in this game and all you're doing is actually getting ready and making yourself prepared to accept them into the world of the play that you're creating. AG: That's right. RG: And if something happens in that room, you are duty bound to write it into the show that night. Because when the audience knows you're on your toes and you get that sense of danger, then they have to keep their eye on you. What's it like being on stage alone with 10,000 words? RG: Andrew, have you done a one-man play before? AG: No, I haven't. It's my first time. RG: I'm keen to hear your experience of this. AG: It's exhausting. It's all encompassing. For me, I'm paranoid that I'm going to be boring. So you have to trust the director going, 'It's interesting, it's fine.' But it's also about finding when we move the story forward, when we hold back, what's important for the audience to hear at this point. All these technical things. Normally you have a bit of time where you can go off, have a cup of tea. But in this, you're just always on and for me at the moment, I'm going, 'Oh, this is going ever so well. Oh, I'm liking this …' And then boom. It's like this big thing comes down in front of me, and I'm going, 'I have no idea where I'm going next or what I'm doing.' RG: I'm just going to mute you now, Andrew, I don't need to hear any more of that [laughing]. I've never done a one-man play before, but I've done a few two-handers with Mark Hadlow, which is almost like the same thing. In this play, you're a long time waiting for a cue if you drop your line. So, I'm thinking about it as one line – 10,000 words, a bit of punctuation, over 29 pages. It's taken me the best part of this week to get over that feeling of there is no other actor here. And as Andrew says, you never get to catch your breath. The key in a one-person play is variation of rhythm. Roger has got some beautiful set pieces, like that lovely run where Dickie takes the ute into the CBD and the pace of the anxiety. Your foot is on the accelerator, literally as an actor. Having read those 10,000 words, I know there's an event in the middle of the story that might cause a very big lump in the throat for anyone performing it, and audience alike. How are you finding it? AG: Well, it's playing the truth. It's not being worried about: 'Oh, I'm in a comedy here and I've got to keep them buoyant.' Hopefully, if you play the comedy right, it gives you the licence, and then the room to give them that. And I think that's even more powerful. It's great. RG: The thing that always affects us in life – and it's the same in the theatre – is when you see courage within somebody. Coming from this New Zealand farming stock, Dickie wasn't allowed to have feelings. When you see somebody who has every right to break down and they don't… AG: …it can actually be even more moving. Andrew Grainger at Takapuna Beach. Photo / Supplied On a lighter note, the ATC production is apparently 'a love letter to Auckland'. It's possibly less so in Christchurch. RG: Dickie talks about Auckland being the one place in New Zealand I swore I would never live, and we are hooking into that, because there's a rule of comedy that says, 'put your characters where they don't want to be'. So my role is slightly different to Andrew's. I have to convince Cantabrians that it would be a good idea to retire to Auckland … there's a lot of comedy where Dickie puts the boot into Auckland and I think that'll play for us. Given that this character has had previous iterations and that he dates back nearly 30 years, he's got quite a legacy. Does that affect your approach? AG: It's a bit like James Bond, isn't it? [Laughing] I did see Gavin in the play down in Wellington. It was great but I'm different, and Ross is going to be different. There are different things in it that I see and that's what you play to, your strengths. RG: If anything, knowing that you're stepping into Grant Tilly's shoes – and let's face it, if he were still alive, he would be playing it – that gives you a huge sense of respect. Somewhere in your bones, I think, it makes you work a bit harder. It makes you dig a bit deeper, and you just want to respect the legacy of the actors that have taken this on. I've got a beautiful Grant Tilly story in this role. When he played Dickie Hart in C'mon Black they did huge business all over the country, and then they go to Westport and they play in a pub to 12 people. Tilly comes out afterwards, full of Grant Tilly-ness, and says to this wizened old West Coast guy who's at the pub, 'What's going on? We've played this play up and down the country to full houses, and we come here to Westport, we get 12 people.' And the guy he's talking to says, 'Well, if you were any good, you wouldn't be here, would you?' End of Summer Time by Roger Hall, Auckland Theatre Company, ASB Theatre, June 17 to July 5; The Court Theatre, Christchurch, June 21 to August 16.
NZ Herald
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Sir Roger Hall's End of Summer Time brings Dickie Hart back to the stage
'One of yours?' I asked, assuming it was a quote from one of his plays. 'I think so,' he said. 'I've just noted it down and thought I'd use it somewhere.' Hopefully, he'll forgive me for getting in first. Over the past five decades, Hall has written a roll call of hit comedies for the stage, TV sitcoms, a pantomime version of Cinderella and a radio show for the BBC. He's also had a few misses along the way. If there's no such thing as an overnight success – he'd been writing in one way or another for 15 years before bursting through with his first play, Glide Time – there's no such thing as an overnight failure, either. Both require dedication and a considerable amount of hard work. 'Writing can be a joy when it goes well,' says Hall, whose 41st play, End of Summer Time, opens in Auckland next month. Sir Roger Hall on Takapuna Beach where, in 2005, he staged a scene from Bruce Mason's play The End of the Golden Weather, a performance which has become an annual ritual. Photo / Dean Purcell Resurrecting one of his most popular characters, Dickie Hart, the one-man show is heading north after an extended six-week run at Wellington's Circa Theatre, where there wasn't a single empty seat in the house. 'Most of the time, you wouldn't swap this for anything. But sometimes you crave to go into an office where you know what the day's work ahead is going to be and you don't have to think, because there's somebody to tell you what to do.' It's comforting, somehow, to know it hasn't always come easy. According to Hall, he's 'not good at plot', isn't interested in description and keeps telling himself never to write another musical. So far, he's done four. 'Half the money for twice the work,' he jokes, although the odd royalty cheque still arrives for Footrot Flats: The Musical, which has been staged 130 times. Last month, he received a 'modest' sum for a new production by the Hopetoun Amateur Theatrical Society in Western Australia. Next year, Sir Roger Hall will notch up his half century as a playwright credited with transforming New Zealand's theatre scene. Photo / Dean Purcell Running through his playlist, he ticks off some of the wins and losses in his theatre career. The Share Club, inspired by the get-rich fervour of 'mum and dad' investors before the 1987 market crash, was one of the wins, becoming Downstage Theatre's longest-running play. I'd never heard of A Way of Life, the story of a multi-generational farming family, which he considers one of his best plays. 'No one else thinks so, because there's not enough humour. The first night [in 2001], it got a standing ovation at Tauranga, but a lot of people didn't want a serious play from me. I was hugely disappointed in that one.' Audiences stayed away from his more cerebral, political plays like The Rose, a thinly veiled attack on the Muldoon era. Then again, nobody wanted to know about golf (Golf: A Love Story), either. Well, I wouldn't go to a play about golf, I tell him. 'You're not alone,' he grumbles, good-naturedly. His weekly coffee group felt much the same. 'I did some research and asked how many of them would go to see a play about golf. No one? Okay, well, I'm still going to write it.' Of course, it's his remarkable string of successes that people do remember. No offence, I say, tongue-in-cheek, to the man typically described as New Zealand's most successful playwright. But if you're not much good at plot or description, what exactly are you good at, then? He pauses, considering the question seriously for a moment. 'Funny dialogue, really. And good characters.' I t's easy to forget just how transformational Hall's influence has been on the New Zealand theatre scene, creating an appetite for local productions at a time when quality was still equated with (often mediocre) British plays. Next year, it'll be half a century since Glide Time affectionately satirised Wellington's public service bureaucracy. It sold out after the first night. Rehearsals for a production of Glide Time at Waipukurau Little Theatre in 2014. Photo / Warren Buckland The late John Clarke wrote of Hall's ability to identify 'the faults and follies that highlight small monsters in ordinary people'. Ironically, his knack for nailing the angst and aggravations of the Kiwi middle class was shaped by his own childhood back in England. Biffed out of school by his father for under-performing academically, he worked in insurance for a couple of years before setting sail for Wellington in the late 1950s to avoid being called up for compulsory national service. He'd just turned 19. His life came full circle, 20 years later, when he won Comedy of the Year with a production of Middle Age Spread on London's West End, starring Richard Briers and Paul Eddington from The Good Life. Hall, who was presented with the award by Sir John Gielgud, thought the original Circa show was just as good. A poster in Sir Roger Hall's office from the award-winning West End production of his play, Middle Age Spread, which featured two of the most popular British actors at the time. Photo / Dean Purcell Generally speaking, his foreign origins haven't been held against him here. 'Max Cryer used to say, 'Of course, you're English!' I'd tell him I may be English, but I'm a New Zealand writer because all my writing was done here. And I don't think like an English writer, I'm sure.' By the time Hall released his 1998 biography, Bums on Seats, he'd already recorded $20 million in box-office sales. According to Playmarket NZ, two of the most licensed plays in New Zealand this century were written by Hall: Four Flat Whites in Italy, about two retired couples on a late-life OE, and Social Climbers, where five high-school teachers get trapped in a tramping hut. It's true, there's a generation (or two) for whom the concept of a Roger Hall play dates back to the ark. Despite his reputation for supporting emerging playwrights, he is not – possibly never has been – considered particularly cool. However, older theatregoers remain staunch supporters of the arts in these straitened times and much of his audience has aged alongside him, remaining fiercely loyal. Since its opening season in 1993, the Auckland Theatre Company has averaged a Roger Hall play every two years, banking on the kind of box-office returns that allow riskier scheduling elsewhere on the programme. Mark Hadlow and Alison Quigan in Winding Up, described in one review as "a poignant lesson in undying love". Photo / Andi Crown Photography His 2020 show, Winding Up, revisited Barry and Gen from his 90s hit Conjugal Rites, as they bickered their way through retirement. End of Summer Time sees the return of another fan favourite, Dickie Hart, a Roger Hall kind of character name if ever there was one. The curmudgeonly cow cocky made his first appearance in the one-man show C'mon Black, about his life-changing trip to the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa (where the defeated All Blacks may or may not have been deliberately 'poisoned'). In the sequel You Gotta Be Joking, Dickie and wife Glenda had upped sticks from the farm and moved to Wellington. Now, much to Dickie's horror, they're relocating north to be closer to the grandchildren. Auckland! It's crowded, expensive… Traffic's terrible. All everyone thinks about is money. And they don't even have a decent footie team. Auckland! Over my dead body. It's a deal, Glenda says. Tickets are selling strongly for the show, following the massive success of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, which has been scheduled for a return season next February. Andrew Grainger will play Dickie, with Alison Quigan as director. Hall's long-time collaborator, she's worked on more than 20 of his productions, on and off the stage. With End of Summer Time, Hall wanted to write a play about someone close to his age – Dickie is in his 70s. It's also a love letter to Auckland, where he and wife Dianne have lived for many years now after moving up from Dunedin, where he had a long association with the Fortune Theatre. From the first day, he felt very much at home. 'It was warm, it was vibrant,' he says. 'Auckland is a wonderful arts city, but hardly anyone recognises that. In fact, it has a more diverse and more interesting arts scene than Wellington. The difference is Wellingtonians are proud of it.' Andrew Grainger plays cow cocky Dickie Hart in Sir Roger Hall's one-man play End of Summer Time, opening in Auckland next month. The title, End of Summer Time, echoes the late Bruce Mason's acclaimed one-man show, The End of the Golden Weather, which made a huge impression on Hall when he saw it in the early 60s. In 2005, he arranged for a scene from The End of the Golden Weather set on Takapuna Beach to be performed there on Christmas Day – a ritual that has since become a popular annual tradition. Another of his legacies is the recently established Roger Hall Theatre Trust, managed by the Arts Foundation. A $25,000 laureate is awarded every second year, alternating with five 'Out of the Limelight' awards of $5000 each, acknowledging vital contributions behind the scenes. Despite his many accolades, Hall's work has often been met by critics with muted enthusiasm. Being popular – 'getting 'bums on seats' – is looked down on by some with an element of snobbery that must have stung him at times. 'Yes, certainly,' he admits. 'But then you think, 'I'm a bit hurt, but gosh, look at the bookings!' That's better than the other way around: wonderful reviews but nobody's going. So, it is a consolation to think the public seem to like it. 'Woody Allen says something about how writing comedy means you never get to dine at the top table. In other words, it's never really regarded by critics as worthy of a 'serious' play. Yet the message can be almost more important and it certainly needs the most skill.' His great inspiration, British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, is just a couple of months younger than Hall and still writing the kind of comedies both men love, with an underlying sense of pathos. As an older Pākehā man, Hall is aware the ground is shifting to make way for a new generation of writers with different views and different things to say. He's been dabbling with another play, but so far it's not leaping off the page. 'I dutifully tap away a bit, hoping that it'll catch fire and it hasn't. But I can hardly complain. After 50 years of playwriting, if the muse decides it's done with me, then that's fair enough.' Roger Hall's End of Summer Time is on at Auckland's ASB Waterfront Theatre from June 17 to July 5. A season at the new Court Theatre in Christchurch, starring Ross Gumbley, runs from June 21 to August 16. Joanna Wane is an award-winning senior lifestyle writer with a special interest in social issues and the arts.
