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Robyn Malcolm’s life in TV (Image: Archi Banal)
Robyn Malcolm’s life in TV (Image: Archi Banal)

Pop CultureOctober 28, 2023

‘I still get called Mrs West’: Robyn Malcolm on the role that changed her life

Robyn Malcolm’s life in TV (Image: Archi Banal)
Robyn Malcolm’s life in TV (Image: Archi Banal)

The New Zealand television legend reflects on the legacy of Cheryl West, working with Jane Campion, and why she’s still haunted by banana skins.

Just like her Far North co-star (and fellow My Life in TV contributor) Temuera Morrison, Robyn Malcom is someone who has truly earned the right to the (extremely overused) word “icon”. She first made red cardigans cool as nurse Ellen Crozier on Shortland Street in the 1990s, where her character burnt down her house with a cigarette, thwarted murder attempts by her own sister and survived the dramatic sinking of a harbour cruise in the 1998 Christmas cliffhanger. 

While we’ve never forgotten that crisp Crozier uniform, it was the laced-lined leopard print of Cheryl West in Outrageous Fortune in the mid 2000s that would become her most recognisable onscreen role. The foul-mouthed, hardass Westie matriarch quickly became one of the most beloved local characters of all time, winning Malcolm a slew of awards and even spawning a nationwide search to cast Young Cheryl in the prequel series Westside.  

Robyn Malcolm as, from left to right, Cheryl West, Pam in This Town, and Ellen Crozier (Image: Tina Tiller)

As if the longest-running soap opera and drama series wasn’t quite enough, she’s also starred in Top of the Lake, Agent Anna, Upper Middle Bogan, Blackbird, Rake, This Town, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Far North. Her latest project is scripted series After the Party, which we recently called “the best New Zealand drama in years”. Malcolm plays Penny, a high school teacher and grandmother whose life implodes after she accuses her husband of sexual assault. 

After the Party begins five years after the horrific incident, with Penny living and working in a community that either doesn’t believe her or simply wants to move on. It’s a beautifully made, layered series that’s full of ambiguity and unresolved tension, and as the drama unfolds and viewers try to piece together what really happened that night, Malcolm hopes the audience will be pulled right into Penny’s complex, uneasy world. 

Peter Mullan as Phil and Robyn Malcolm as Penny in After the Party (Image: Supplied)

“I hope they feel like they’ve been through six hours of incredibly entertaining and involving drama,” she says. “You feel quite wrung out, but it’s very satisfying. It’s like you’ve had a really, really good meal.” Ahead of After the Party’s premiere on TVNZ1, Malcolm spoke with us about her favourite TV moments, including the legacy of Cheryl West, working with Jane Campion and how Get Smart taught her to never trust a banana. 

My earliest TV memory is… The moon landing. I would have been three, and I was sitting on my potty in our living room in Motueka. I remember the black and white, and the image on our little TV and the heater on, knowing there was something major going on.

My earliest TV crush was… Lindsay Wagner, the Bionic Woman. I was obsessed with the Bionic Woman. I was inconsolable when she died, my life fell apart. I couldn’t think straight for ages. This woman could do anything. I mean, Steve Austin was fine, but she was a total girl crush. Years later I had the same kind of crush on Sigourney Weaver in Alien, and it was like “this is the woman I want to be when I grow up”. 

The TV moment that haunts me to this day is… There was an episode of Get Smart when one of the criminals dressed up as a gorilla, and every time they killed somebody, they left a banana skin. I hid behind the couch, it was one of the scariest things I’d ever seen. I never looked at banana skins quite the same way for a long time.

The TV ad I can’t stop thinking about is… a Tabu by Dana perfume ad. Again, I must have been quite young because I remember thinking “what’s all this about?” It was kind of early 70s, kind of Farrah Fawcett, Vaseline on the lens, and she was looking very desirous of a man with his shirt off, chopping wood. I remember as a kid being quite, “ooh, is this about chopping wood?”

My most defining TV role was… Cheryl West from Outrageous Fortune. It turned my career in a completely different direction. I loved the fact she could be villain and hero, I loved that she was an absolute dick and did so many terrible things, but did them for the right reasons. She was equally comedic and equally dramatic and I got to play such a massive range of human experiences through her journey.

Cheryl got to drive fast cars, smoke, drink, shag lots of men, yell at her kids, love everybody and do terribly illegal things at times, and be whole. Of course, because the show was so popular with New Zealanders, I still get called Mrs. West and her nickname was Slutty Pants, so I still get that a bit, which is really funny. I don’t mind it. 

Robyn Malcolm as Cheryl West in Outrageous Fortune (Photo: Supplied)

My TV guilty pleasure is… The Super Models. When I was a little kid, I was obsessed with the idea of the beautiful woman, because I was short and round and played the cello. They seemed like an animal that was so far away from me, you know? 

My favourite TV project that I’ve ever been involved with is… I really loved Top of the Lake. Jane [Campion] is a master, and that collection of actors was just heaven to work with every day. 

The thing I wish people knew about being an actor is… It’s not for the faint-hearted, and the primary experience of most actors is rejection, which no one knows about. When we were auditioning for After the Party and I was watching all my colleagues come in, and every single one, I knew the journey they’d gone through. You spend two or three days with the script, you think about the character, you think about what you’re going to wear, you throw yourself into the emotional place of the character. Most of the time you hear nothing back, and most actors experience that 20 times a year. The reason we do it is because when we do, it’s amazing. It’s a real privilege to do it. 

Robyn Malcolm and Temuera Morrison as Heather and Ed in Far North (Photo: South Pacific Pictures)

The TV show that defined my lockdown was… I watched a lot of reruns, like Deadwood. I was obsessed with Deadwood.  I’ve watched that show three or four times. 

My most controversial TV opinion is… Sex and the City was a piece of shit. Do you know one of the reasons why we ended Outrageous Fortune the way we did? Having just seen the last episode of Sex and the City where they made all the women hook up with a bloke, I was like, “fuck that, let’s have Cheryl on her own”. 

The last show I binge-watched was… A Norwegian comedy called Norsemen. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. It’s a pisstake of Vikings, and they pillage and kill and sacrifice and do all those things, but they have these really mundane conversations about life as they’re doing it. It’s on Netflix, and I don’t know why it didn’t get much traction. Honestly, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

After the Party screens on TVNZ1 on Sundays at 8.30pm and streams on TVNZ+. 

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Photo: Paranormal NZ. Additional treatment by Archi Banal
Photo: Paranormal NZ. Additional treatment by Archi Banal

SocietyOctober 28, 2023

A night with Paranormal NZ, ‘Mr Smiley’ and possibly a ghost named Peg

Photo: Paranormal NZ. Additional treatment by Archi Banal
Photo: Paranormal NZ. Additional treatment by Archi Banal

New Zealand’s most active paranormal research group has spent years investigating an Auckland theatre. How do they prove it’s haunted?

Heavy black velvet curtains fall from a lattice of beams high in the ceiling onto the black stage. The rows of blue chairs are all empty. The house and stage lights are off, with the only lighting coming from the entrance and exit passages. In the centre of the stage is a bright yellow ball from the $2 shop with a smiley face on it. It is slightly deflated, and so immobilised. 

Mark Wallbank doesn’t investigate any building without packing “Mr Smiley”. It’s a “trigger object,” an invitation for a ghost who might announce their presence by moving the ball. Wallbank has dedicated much of his life trying to detect and understand ghosts, and for over a decade has led Aotearoa’s most active paranormal research group, Paranormal NZ (previously Haunted Auckland). He’s 55, but that doesn’t stop him crawling through a small opening in the ceiling and onto the lattices on which the curtains and stage lights hang, albeit with some complaints from his back. Nor does it stop overnight stays, sleeping on floors at places which are under investigation. He says his wife is “very tolerant”, and enjoys her space from time to time.

Before the Waitakere Ranges became the source of Auckland’s water, water was taken from Lake Pupuke by a pump in this building.

Tonight, we’re in Auckland’s PumpHouse Theatre with one of the group’s longest standing members, Sam Collier. At times, it’s hard to tell the two men apart. They are both wearing black pants, black Vans with white soles, matching black Paranormal NZ T-shirts with a ghostly white figure glowing on their chests, unbuttoned long sleeve shirts casually layered over the top, and somewhat meticulously groomed facial hair.

The pair admit to having a “shared logical thinking” which they use to avoid jumping to fantastical assumptions. Their motto is that they are not sceptics, but not believers either. Wallbank is particularly dubious of orbs, which is unfortunate because he thinks he may have seen one this year. He is looking for a way to debunk the strange flash of light.

Voices travel in from outside, where families are enjoying the last of the light by the lakeside of Pupuke, and creaks occasionally emanate from unseen corners of the building, which was built in 1905. These sounds only warrant short pauses for listening and are then left to pass. Wallbank and Collier are familiar with the non-paranormal sounds of the PumpHouse; they’ve been investigating it since at least 2014.

Despite spending years if not decades in this, and other historical locations like the Lake House Arts Centre, Carrington Hospital and Howick Historical Village, Paranormal NZ never says a place is haunted. What they will say is that there has been activity, unexplained occurrences, and that they have favourite sites that they would return to “in a heartbeat,” says Collier. All their investigations seem to be “ongoing”.

The theatre itself does not shy away from its resident ghost. Staff and visitors have reported feeling watched, props going missing and reappearing, and seeing someone in the green room in the stage right wings. They attribute these happenings to a ghost named Peg, who has her own tab on the PumpHouse website, lovingly titled “Our ghost”. In the late 1960s, Cicely Margaret (Peg) Escott was instrumental in rescuing the building and turning it into a theatre. Her play Saved was partly performed at the reopening weekend in 1977. Sadly, Escott died by suicide the following year. Her ghost is said to be a bit of a trickster, perhaps even one that might like to kick a yellow ball with a smiley face on it.

Wallbank and his tools on The PumpHouse stage at a public event in 2014. (Photo: Supplied)

Beside Mr Smiley on the stage are backpacks full of other tools. Half of them are for the purpose of detecting ghosts, and making contact with them. The problem, of course, is that no one is sure exactly what ghosts are, so detection is fraught. Wallbank says there seems to be a new gadget or phone app to detect ghosts every other day, and he doesn’t trust many, if any, of them. His preferred method of detection is to spend long, quiet hours sitting in a place and listening, either alone or with his group.

Still, the whole thing about paranormal activity is that it occurs mostly outside of human senses, so gadgets are used to expand what we can see, hear and feel. The gadgets Paranormal NZ use are mostly older technology, things that have been used by generations of ghost investigators. Many of them are different makes and models of electromagnetic field (EMF for those in the know) sensors. When I ask how much they cost, Wallbank will only admit that “it is an expensive hobby”.

Wallbank pulls one from his camo-print bag. It’s about the size and shape of a brick, and a cleated silicone case makes it look grunty, like if a demon appeared you could sock it over the head and run away safely. Unlike a couple of EMF meters which have made their way onto the floor, it has a complicated face. This gadget is an EDI Meter, which detects not only EMF but also temperature and vibration. It has a digital screen to display numbers, like an alarm clock, a row of little black buttons, a row of blue LED lights and another of yellow ones. From its top protrudes a memory card which records changes in the readings through time, like a song of activity beyond human senses. Tonight on the stage, it doesn’t seem to be picking up much of anything, until we take it to the light switch. Here, it gets excited, and emits an alarm sound. Perhaps looking for ghosts is not so quiet after all.

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Just as important as the sensors are the legion of cameras, lights, tripods and dictaphones. After all, what would be the point of seeing a ghost if you don’t have evidence? 

The hours that Paranormal NZ members spend investigating are carefully documented from various angles and on various devices. Being somewhere is only the beginning, because afterwards, all this documentation has to be carefully scrutinised. Giggles that one member heard upstairs have been revealed to be another member laughing downstairs. Or, in an incident that still plays on Wallbank’s mind, the torch that was on the chair really did get flung down a flight of stairs, while he was asleep, without a worldly explanation. He would not have seen it, were it not for the camera pointed on the staircase through the night. For the detractors, there is a second video, recorded simultaneously in another room. It shows Wallbank sleeping, then being rudely awakened by the thump of the torch, with a timestamp in the corner. He has drawn diagrams of the space, visited it numerous times, and “still can’t figure it out”. 

All the documentation is stored on hard-drives in Wallbank and Collier’s homes. “The investigation does not end at the location,” says Collier, “it can continue for hours, or years, afterwards.” It’s not only an expensive hobby, but also a lifestyle and calling. “We’re just ordinary people with day jobs and problems,” says Collier. 

Collier and Wallbank say it takes a particular kind of person to investigate the paranormal. Photo: Gabi Lardies.

It’s hard to imagine how they have time for day jobs. The group investigates sites numerous times a month, and Wallbank has written a series of books about their adventures and findings. The most recent, Haunted Auckland, serves as a guidebook for all the locations that they don’t claim to be haunted but for some reason return to over and over again. The PumpHouse Theatre takes up just two pages of the 248-page volume. The activity here is “subtle” – not as exciting, they say, as other locations, but they have a good relationship with management and so have easy access.

They take me behind the curtains, backstage and upstairs, through a series of little rooms and into a pokey hallway next to a toilet. They reckon Peg could have other ghostly company. Wallbank tells me about a caretaker who not only cleaned the theatre but would dress up and jump on stage to act in non-speaking roles. It isn’t clear whether he was invited on stage or did it of his own gumption, but it seems it was accepted as his portrait is framed on the wall in the lobby downstairs. He passed away in 2017. It is said that after his death the doors of the cleaning cupboards were often found flung open. Wallbank opens the doors in the corner of the hallway, revealing mops, spray bottles, brooms and extension cords.

Then, there’s a much smaller ghost, with four paws and a tail. Tiger was taken in by The PumpHouse in 2011 when he was found sleeping in a shrub nearby. Though shy, he enjoyed the odd stage appearance, and would break the tension of many dramatic Shakespeare scenes with a loud meow. Tiger died in 2017, but cat-like shadows have been spotted in and around the theatre since. The idea of a meowing ghost is much more heartwarming than a caretaker, but sadly Tiger does not seem to be around tonight. 

When we emerge from the theatre, the sun and the people have gone. Wallbank says he’d happily talk about investigations and ghost theories for hours and hours, at which point Collier offers to walk me to my car. On my drive home, a traffic light is stuck on a flickering yellow signal. It could be an electrical fault, but who can be sure?

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