‘Mr. Gormsby’ wows Australian critics!

‘Mr. Gormsby’ wows Australian critics!

A politically incorrect teacher with appalling views, bushy moustache and an Officer’s swagger stick joins an Indian Motorbike, a computer generated lion and a computer generated giant ape in delighting overseas audiences.

The local comedy series Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby starring David McPhail has been receiving rave reviews in the Australian media since premiering on the nationwide ABC channel two weeks ago.

Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby, the first New Zealand comedy to ever play on free-to-air television in Australia, was described by Mike O’Connor of Brisbane’s Courier-Mail as ‘hopelessly and delightfully irreverent, brilliant and hilarious.’ O’Connor saw Gormsby as a ‘devastatingly witty spoof of the New Zealand education system in which the central character of Gormsby exposes the political correctness that has paralysed it. As we enter the television desert which is the holiday season,’ said O’Connor, ‘Gormsby stands as a comedy oasis.’

Lenny Ann Low of the Sydney Morning Herald described the show as ‘darkly funny’ and a ‘quick-witted poke at modern education and society.’

Ray Cassin of the Melbourne Age was similarly impressed, describing Gormsby as ‘resolutely politically incorrect as it is possible for a television series to be … not since Father Ted has there been a television satire so willing to trample on every kind of sensibility, and which so triumphantly gets away with it… It is an attack on hypocrisy on all forms. I don’t think there is a vicious right-wing agenda in Gormsby the series, or even Gormsby the character, but there is a relentless and gleeful insistence on the part of the series writers, Danny Mulheron, Dave Armstrong and Tom Scott, that they will do whatever they can to shock, to make us see the deceits and pretensions they are trying to unmask.’

Plaudits from Australia cap off a great year for the Gormsby creative team. Dave Armstrong’s play The Tutor, directed by Danny Mulheron won The Outstanding New NZ Play at the recent Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards in the Capital. Tom Scott’s play The Daylight Atheist has just finished seasons in Brisbane and Adelaide. The Melbourne Theatre Company won a prestigious Green Room Award for best ser for it’s production, and Richard Piper won a Green Room Award for best male performance as Danny Moffat in that production.

The DVD of series one goes on sale today. A second series of Seven Periods with Mr Gorsmby, funded by TVNZ and New Zealand on Air, is currently being shot in the Hutt Valley, and will screen next year.

ENDS

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