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Home > Recent Projects > Here to Stay
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Here to Stay

Michael fronted the episode, "The English," on the Gibson
Group's documentary series Here to Stay.  The one-hour episode
aired on TV One on Monday 16 April 2007 at 7:30 p.m.

Here to Stay uses interviews with celebrities, politicians, historians, sports figures, and ordinary people to show how people of various nationalities came to be in New Zealand, and how customs they brought with them have influenced the culture of their new home.    The presenters (Michael in this episode) are shown taking part in activities that originated in their home countries, and share their personal and family histories.   Old film, videotape, and photographs are used to show the lives of the early settlers, while their story is told in narration.

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in front of the school in Christchurch that Michael
attended when he first came to New Zealand

Mini racing

having a tradtional English roast
dinner with the Ormond family

George Ormond tells Michael about being
part of two cultures, Maori and European

talking about the English staple, fish and chips,
which is New Zealand's most popular take-away

giving the fryer a shake--just like a pro!

wrapping up a packet of fish and chips

eating fish and chips on the waterfront

hunting deer, one of the English game
animals brought to New Zealand

drinking "billy tea" in the hunting camp

introducing a segment on the English gentry who came to New
Zealand's Canterbury Plain for the challenge of a new land

talking to John Acland from one of the
early families to settle in New Zealand

with boys from Christ College in Christchurch,
a replica of the English public school educational system

talking with Simon Leese, Principal of Christ College

in the Christ College library,
surrounded by books by English authors


talking about the importance of team sports to New
Zealanders, and how they play Commonwealth sports . . .


. . . like cricket . . .

. . . and rugby

riding the Christchurch tramway

reading letters from early settlers complaining that conditions
in New Zealand didn't live up to what they'd been promised

introducing a segment on the isolation of west
coast miners recruited from English mining towns

introducing a segment on gardening, which is dominated by the
English style of careful control and obsession wth the lawn

introducing a segment on the New Zealand military
(standing in front of the Auckland War Memorial Museum)

punting on the Avon River in Christchurch . . .

while introducing a segment on New Zealand's relationship . . .

. . . with England's royalty

English immigrants were recruited to come to New Zealand
after World War II, then later blamed for unemployment

now a large number of young Kiwis are
living in London, "recolonizing" England

some purely English things survive--like Morris dancing

The City of Auckland Morris Dancers

English accents used to be used in Shakespearian productions,
by newsreaders and even on fictional tv shows . . .

. . . but now New Zealander's use their own voices
(Michael reads Shakespeare's sonnets in Maori, above and below)

Home  Recent Projects Future Projects & Appearances Jennifer Ward-Lealand


See the Here to Stay page on TVNZ's website, which includes an article Michael wrote
about coming to New Zealand as a child, as well as his experiences doing Here to Stay.