Michelle Langstone’s life in TV (Photo: TVNZ / Design: Archi Banal)

Pop CultureSeptember 28, 2024

‘Real trouble’: Michelle Langstone on the most chaotic CTI player of all time

Guest writer

Michelle Langstone’s life in TV (Photo: TVNZ / Design: Archi Banal)

The actor and writer looks back on a life filled with terrifying children’s TV, deliciously unforgettable ads and a newfound love for Formula One.

As a child, Michelle Langstone was so enamoured with television that she used to memorise the entire schedule. “Mum would go, ‘what’s on tonight?’ and I’d list all the things,” Langstone says. “I just thought TV was the most amazing thing.”

That early love of TV sparked a long and impressive acting career. Langstone’s first major television role was in early 2000s New Zealand drama The Strip, followed by memorable roles in international hit series Power Rangers S.P.D. and McLeod’s Daughters. She then went on to appear in a variety of esteemed New Zealand dramas, from The Almighty Johnsons, Go Girls and 800 Words, to Westside, One Lane Bridge and The Brokenwood Mysteries. As well as acting, Langstone has established herself as an award-winning writer, and her 2021 memoir Times Like These: On Grief, Hope, and Remarkable Love was met with critical acclaim.

Langstone’s latest TV role is something a little different: she’s currently cast adrift on Celebrity Treasure Island. Langstone fell in love with the “joyful, funny, powerful” reality series shortly after her son was born, and devoured several seasons during the haze of newborn feeding and sleeping. Her enthusiasm for the show has carried over into castaway life, with Langstone playing the game with a mischievous energy. She’s thriving in the outdoors, she took great delight in arranging secret meetings with other players, and this week we saw her acting talents shine when she masterminded a dramatic performance to put her celebrity rivals off their game.

Just one day before an excited Langstone landed on CTI’s beach of hopes and dreams, we set her her first tricky challenge: to answer these questions about her life in television.

Michelle Langstone on Celebrity Treasure Island (Photo: TVNZ)

My earliest TV memory is… Fraggle Rock. We were allowed to get up and watch it on Saturday morning. On Sunday it was Praise Be – God help us, literally – and then afterwards it was Fat Albert and then The Muppet Show. I loved all the Muppets, and Fraggle Rock ruled.

The TV show I rushed home from school to watch was… Star Wars on videotape. When I started school, my brother was three and I would run home and he would wait and we were allowed to watch Star Wars. We watched it every single day after school, and I knew all of the lines. We’d go to my friend’s house and play on the jungle gym and pretend that it was the Death Star or the Millennium Falcon.

The TV moment that haunts me is… There are two, and they happened at the same period in my childhood. One was Children of The Dog Star. Jesus Christ, that thing on the side of the building that went “Saaaarah” and turned and made noises? I can still do that to my sister and she goes “stop it!” I have left her voice messages. Horrifying. Also, the original Under The Mountain. I remember standing behind our couch in our first house, at the moment where Wilberforce is dressed as the policeman. He tries to get into the house and they won’t let him in. He pushes his hand through, and it turns into the Wilberforce hand. I can see every single frame.

My earliest TV crush was… Harrison Ford, from the Indiana Jones movies. He’s just divine. Always quite curmudgeonly and grumpy. I appreciate that. It’s a relatable trait. He’s so laconic.

The TV ad I can’t stop thinking about is… The Cadbury’s Creme Egg ad. When I was at drama school, a rumour went around that a girl in the year ahead of us was a girl from the ad. I still haven’t figured out whether she was or not. I loved the way that they shot the broken egg, and that cap that was full of eggs. It was all soft focus and it looked so delicious and chocolatey.

My favorite TV moment from my own career is… The Almighty Johnsons was ridiculously fun. In the first episode, my character had to go and shoot Odin with an arrow, but she messes it up. We were shooting in the middle of the night in this little weird forest and I was wearing this ridiculous cupid dress. They had taken me out for archery practice with a proper bow and arrow, but when I got there, they gave me a tiny toy bow and arrow. I had to run away fast and I’d taken the skin off my knees and I was bleeding. I just remember standing there in the dark, with this tiny bow and arrow and blood trickling down my legs, going “this is the most ridiculous job, I am so lucky”.

My TV guilty pleasure is… I don’t really believe in guilt as a concept with TV, because I think that all TV is subjectively awesome, depending on who you are. What I did watch that felt out of character for me and what I got addicted to, was At Home With The Furys. What a show. I love Paris Fury. I love Tyson Fury. I’ve got such a soft spot for their whole way of life and I just found it super moving. Really compelling TV.

The TV show that I wish I’d been involved with is… Probably one of the Merchant Ivory shows. I would just love to do a proper, luscious period drama/comedy. The original Pride and Prejudice by the BBC is still crushingly good. I love a corset, I love a romp around, I love a tight pin curl. Get me in there.

My favourite CTI moment is… I found everything that Susan Devoy did simultaneously mystifying and hysterical. She was such mischief, she was real trouble. I just found it completely delightful, because I would not have expected that from her. I love it when people flip your expectation of them, and she did that so well.

The show I’ll never watch, no matter how many people tell me to is… I have one, but then I watched it and it completely changed my mind. Does that count? The banging on about Drive to Survive, people saying “you have to watch it”. I was like, have you met me? Formula One? I would rather die. Then I got Covid last year, and I was really bored. I watched the entire thing in 10 days, every single episode. I stayed up all night. It was one of the most emotionally affecting things I’ve ever seen. It just flipped me, man. I was just like, “yes, shut up everybody.” It’s outstanding.

The last thing I watched on television was… Celebrity Treasure Island. I was waiting for the taxi to come and pick me up [to go to the island], and I was like, should we just watch an episode of CTI from some random season? We started watching Sam Wallace’s season, which I hadn’t seen before. We only got three minutes in, but I felt like I might as well get in the game.

Celebrity Treasure Island screens on Monday-Wednesday on TVNZ2 at 7.30pm and streams on TVNZ+.

Keep going!

Jayne Kiely and Paul Glover are here to help New Zealand house hunters (Photo: TVNZ)

Pop CultureSeptember 28, 2024

Location Location Location NZ is a bleak reminder of how much a home costs

Tara Ward

Staff writer

Jayne Kiely and Paul Glover are here to help New Zealand house hunters (Photo: TVNZ)

Tara Ward watches the new homegrown version of a beloved UK property series.

This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here.

In TVNZ’s new series AA Insurance Location Location Location New Zealand, two familiar faces step up as our own Kirstie and Phil: Jayne Kiely and Paul Glover. You might remember Kiely from her TV presenting roles in the 2000s, or recognise actor Glover from shows like Educators and 800 Words. Now, they’re real estate agents ready to help New Zealand house hunters find a home. “I’m your fairy godmother, dressed in a blue suit,” Glover jokes when he meets first home buyers Adam and Jesz.

Adam and Jesz need more than a fairy godmother in their search for a home on Auckland’s popular North Shore. Despite a budget of (Dr Evil voice) one million dollars, they’re exhausted from three years of open homes and auctions. “We’re a bit deluded, thinking maybe we can afford that, and finding out we’re nowhere near,” Jesz says. “I’m not going to lie, we’re up against it,” Glover warns them.

They’re not the only buyers who need Glover and Kiely’s help. There’s Tracy, who’s looking to upgrade with a budget of $1.6 million. And in episode two, Jayne helps Hamilton paramedic Sonya search for a healthy home in the $680,000 price range, while Paul meets Chantelle, who wants a bigger family home in South Auckland. “I’m really limited on budget. I’ve only got $700,000,” Glover tells Kiely, who grimaces in response.

Just like the UK version, each buyer is shown three different properties (some appear to be for sale through Ray White Real Estate, where both Kiely and Glover work). Tracy, who said she doesn’t like townhouses, is shown a townhouse. Sonya, who lives on a farm and wants a quiet, leafy suburb, is shown a third floor central city apartment. Glover takes Adam and Jesz to a house in west Auckland, where their million dollars will “go a lot further”. The small Te Atatū Peninsula house they look at has a starting price of $900,000, and will likely climb higher.

Paul Glover takes the needs of the house hunter seriously (Screengrab)

Buying a house has always been about compromise and sacrifice, and LLL slides across some of the challenges in today’s market. “With high interest rates and slow wage growth, the dream of owning your own home feels out of reach for many young people in Aotearoa,” it tells us. It also informs us that house prices have fallen since their peak in 2021, and that we’re now in a “buyers’ market”.

But that’s as far as LLL is willing to go – which is to say, there’s something off about making this show in the middle of a housing crisis, without fully acknowledging how tough things are or how we got here. New Zealand has some of the least affordable houses in the OECD. Home ownership rates are the lowest in 70 years. LLL NZ shows us plenty of expensive homes, but it doesn’t mention the impact of property investors on prices, and it’s unlikely that two real estate agents will shine a critical light on a complex system that they explicitly benefit from.

When Kiely reveals she had to sell her car to buy her first home at age 27 in Queenstown, it feels particularly out of touch. This Stuff piece from 2022 states that in the mid-1990s, when Kiely would have made that life changing purchase, the average New Zealand home cost $125,440, which was 3.2 times the average household income of $39,796. In 2022, the average house cost $977,158, 8.2 times the average household’s income. That’s a lot of cars to sell.

Of course, it’s not Kiely and Glover’s job to fix the housing market in one hour every Sunday night (though I would watch the crap out of that show, if they could), and they bring warmth and energy to each house hunt. But what LLL NZ does – perhaps unwittingly – is reflect how hard it is for today’s first home buyers to compete in a system that isn’t built for them, where one million Auckland dollars doesn’t buy you a million dollar view, let alone a house that isn’t plonked on top of a busy highway.

At least Adam and Jesz get their happy ending. They fall in love with the third property Glover shows them and secure it at auction for $50,000 over their million dollar budget. Their relief and joy is a reminder of everything home ownership represents: security, safety, a place to put down roots forever. This happy ending should have made LLL NZ feel as warm and comforting as the UK version, but somehow, it didn’t. Like being shown a $1.6 million dollar house with half a garage, it just felt a bit bleak.

Location Location Location NZ screens on Sunday nights at 7.30pm on TVNZ1 and streams on TVNZ+.