The Fold

What we got wrong about the Tom Phillips and Polkinghorne documentaries

Lawyer and producer Philippa Rennie joins Duncan Greive to discuss the complex challenge of creating compelling documentary television.

12 May 2026

The Fold

More about the episode

Philippa Rennie has had a near unique view of real life TV storytelling in New Zealand. She worked as the in-house lawyer for Warner Brother Productions for a decade, before moving across to make television as head of scripted there. She joins the Fold to speak with admirable candour about what went wrong on shows like Married at First Sight, why Julie Christie probably isn’t the right person to make a show about the Marokopa-Phillips case, and how you satisfy ethical considerations while still making compelling television.