With my usu­al excel­lent sense of tim­ing I have decided to make my con­tri­bu­tion to the Intenscity event some days after it has been dis­mantled but I hope Wel­ling­ton his­tory afi­cion­ados will appre­ci­ate it any­way.

This short video fea­tures Bri­an Ser­gent play­ing his well-loved char­ac­ter Gav­in Sop­er (Air New Zea­l­and Cab­in Stew­ard) for TV3’s Night­line in (I think) 1992 or 3. Gav­in is cel­eb­rat­ing the impend­ing com­ple­tion of the refur­bished Te Aro Park, the cost of which was a source of some loc­al con­tro­versy at the time. The oth­er great con­tem­por­ary issue he alludes to is the num­ber of glue-sniff­ing street-kids pre­dom­in­at­ing around the Te Aro area. Sim­ul­tan­eous with the beau­ti­fic­a­tion of Te Aro Park was the WCC scheme to house these “poor glue-addled kid­dies” in a couple of con­ver­ted ship­ping con­tain­ers on waste ground south of the Basin Reserve.

Writ­ten by Bri­an Ser­gent; dir­ec­ted by Jonath­an Brough; pro­duced by Jonath­an Brough, Gor­don Har­court and myself.