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The best person to represent NZ on the world stage (Image / Tina Tiller)
The best person to represent NZ on the world stage (Image / Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureFebruary 3, 2022

Rose Matafeo is on the Graham Norton Show – and not just in the red chair

The best person to represent NZ on the world stage (Image / Tina Tiller)
The best person to represent NZ on the world stage (Image / Tina Tiller)

A lot of New Zealanders sit on Graham Norton’s big red chair. Just three have made it to the couch. Stewart Sowman-Lund honours the latest member of the exclusive club.

We’ve done it, New Zealand. One of our own has made it to the Graham Norton Show – and not just the big red chair (although, during these socially distanced times, the guests also sit on big red chairs).

Comedian, writer and actress Rose Matafeo has become just the third New Zealander to guest on the UK’s biggest talk show, joining a highly exclusive club that includes only Anna Paquin (in 2008) and Sam Neill (2016 and 2021). 

Yup, it’s just a team of three. No Taika, no Lorde, no Phar Lap. Not even a pavlova or Briscoes Lady. And while Jacinda Ardern may love hanging out with Stephen Colbert, the prime minister has never made it to Norton’s illustrious couch. I’m counting Russell Crowe as an Australian, by the way, and am not open to discussion on the matter.

Twenty-nine-year-old Matafeo appeared on the show to promote her incredibly good BBC comedy Starstruck, which she stars in and co-wrote. The second season of the show, a loosely autobiographical story about a New Zealander in London (Matafeo) who starts a tentative relationship with an A-list celebrity, is on TVNZ OnDemand from February 16. 

Of course, Matafeo was already an award-winning comedian before appearing on Norton’s show. But now, sitting side by side with the likes of acting royalty Kenneth Branagh and Line of Duty’s Vicky McClure, she has become a true New Zealand ambassador. Why? Because New Zealanders really love Graham Norton. His talk show airs during prime time every week (including at Christmas), we drink (and make) his wine, and we are lured to his big red chair in our masses. The show’s official YouTube channel has an 11 minute compilation of New Zealanders’ stories in the chair. We just can’t get enough of it! 

So for a local to actually make it to the couch – that is the televisual equivalent of Lisa Carrington scoring another gold medal or the All Blacks winning a world cup. The Graham Norton stage is probably the second most viewed pedestal on New Zealand TV after the Beehive Theatrette at 1pm.

On the show, Matafeo seems fully aware of just how important her newfound platform is. “This is a very popular show in New Zealand,” she tells Norton, as though he doesn’t already know. “We’ve watched this for many years in New Zealand, we very much like it and we’re very happy for me to be representing our country.” Speaking on behalf of an entire nation is what international ambassadors have to do, and Matafeo nails it.

An ambassador also has to use their platform to help build global relationships and Matafeo uses her time on the telly to develop diplomatic ties with another celebrity, West Side Story breakout star Rachel Zegler. The pair make plans to go for a sausage roll at UK institution Greggs later on. “Greggs is a bakery for drunk people,” Matafeo explains. “We’re going after the show.” Our actual diplomats should take note: a late night sausage roll is clearly the best way to make friends.

BFFs (Image / Screenshot)

As soon as the episode aired in the UK, Twitter was all over the two new besties, especially after Matafeo admitted she’d seen West Side Story twice (at the cinema, alone).

Of course, no episode of Graham Norton is complete without a visit to the red chair. “We’ve had so many New Zealanders on the show, but they’re usually at the end of the show in the red chair,” jokes Norton during the episode. “Way to shit on my country!” replies Matafeo. 

Shockingly, there’s a New Zealander sitting in it this week too. London-based Alice – who went to St Dominic’s College in Auckland – reckons she has “friends of friends” with Matafeo. 

“Why is it always New Zealanders in the red chair?” wonders Matafeo, positing that it’s “because we experience the most messed up stuff.”

Sadly, Alice’s story of travelling through Vietnam is not messed up at all; it barely qualifies as an experience. She gets flipped and Matafeo, now realising the full burden of being a New Zealand ambassador, looks embarrassed. 

It’s okay, Rose (Image / Screenshot)

“That story felt like it was happening in real time,” says Norton. 

“You’re going to get that with a St Dom’s girl,” Matafeo says. “Poor Alice.”

The Graham Norton Show, with Rose Matafeo, airs tonight at 8.30pm on Three. Season two of Starstruck launches on February 16 on TVNZ2 and TVNZ OnDemand.


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The Breakfast crew back in their happy place (Design: Tina Tiller)
The Breakfast crew back in their happy place (Design: Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureFebruary 2, 2022

Breakfast’s new set is absolutely wild, and I love it

The Breakfast crew back in their happy place (Design: Tina Tiller)
The Breakfast crew back in their happy place (Design: Tina Tiller)

TVNZ 1’s early morning news show is back, but not as we know it. Tara Ward woke up early to drool over Breakfast’s shiny new set, and learns that nothing is what it seems. 

Breakfast burst back onto our screens on Monday morning in an explosion of colour and light, and the team couldn’t have been more excited. John Campbell, Jenny-May Clarkson, Indira Stewart and Matty McLean were pumped to kick off another year of early starts, beaming into our homes from a set that was nothing we’ve seen on breakfast telly before.

It’s my house and I live here (Photo: TVNZ)

Breakfast has replaced their slouchy armchairs and awkward stools with a mansion so grand I expected to see Kevin McCloud in the corner tutting over the budget. “Welcome to our flash new house,” John said to the nation, and from now on we must imagine all the TVNZ presenters living here together, taking turns to sleep in the top bunk while poor Toni Street does all the cooking because she almost won Celebrity Kiwi Bake Off that time.

There were windows out the back, there were windows up the top. The new set is so large that when the camera panned out to show the space in all its splendour, the presenters almost disappeared. Once normal sized humans, they were now the hobbits of the TVNZ shire, The Borrowers of the news world. Around them stood the Sagrada Familia of breakfast television, all soaring ceilings and dappled sunlight, with a jungle of hanging plants so lush and green they could save the planet in a single breath.

In breaking news, New Zealand, those plants are not real.

Honey, I shrunk the journalists (Photo: TVNZ)

Those plants are FAKE NEWS, and so are those bricks, and as for the beams in the ceiling? That’s not even a roof. Breakfast’s cathedral to current affairs is the latest augmented reality wonder created by the TVNZ graphics department, a dramatic backdrop whipped up by clever computer technology. The newsreaders are real, I think, but the rest is just a glorious illusion.

It’s quite the vibe from a news source in 2022, but Breakfast isn’t worried about my trust issues. They were more focused on the hero piece of their jazzy new studio, a set of screens filled with vibrant illustrations by New Zealand artist Flox. Breakfast has brought the outside world inside, and it turns out watching fauna and flora float slowly on a big screen is the perfect distraction from learning about how shit the world is right now.

I like big birds and I cannot lie (Photo: TVNZ)

The four presenters stood, they leaned, they sat. The new white couch seemed kilometres away from the new standing desk, which made social distancing a breeze but also created a charming “the kids are in the kitchen while the grown ups enjoy some quiet time in the lounge” energy. It meant John could sit and ask economist Bernard Hickey why the rich are now $52 billion wealthier than before the pandemic, while at the desk Matty leaned and discussed his summer beard, which had grown considerably slower than the wealth gap.

What was the other news of the day? No idea. I spent all morning staring at the spectacular Flox illustrations, soaking up their beauty and wondering who would win a fight between Matty McLean and the giant kea. That kea looks mean, but on Tuesday Matty wore a suit that matched the new sofa, so he could probably camouflage his way out of trouble while John is left to placate the parrot with nothing but his Spotify playlist (8,600 followers and counting; 8,601 with the kea).

Where are you, Matty McLean (Photo: TVNZ)

The set wasn’t the only change. There was a new “foreign producer” segment and Matty McLean is no longer on weather duty, with the forecasts now read by Indira at the end of the news bulletin. This means Matty’s (my) beloved weather broom is out in the cold, shunned from this new world without explanation or farewell. This set is too cool to use a broom handle to point out Kurow or Mangawhai on the weather map. A broom can never compete with this sort of snazzy shit.

It was a lot, even at the late hour of 9am. “We know this is a sensory overload,” Jenny-May said. “Especially if you’ve been smoking a reefer, ladies and gentlemen,” John piped up. Had I been smoking a reefer? The only thing I was sure of was that the tui hadn’t stopped eyeballing me for three hours. I come in peace, big bird, I only want to know the weather in Timaru.

Hell of a way to start the year. The ball’s in your court, The AM Show.

Breakfast screens on TVNZ 1 every weekday morning from 6am.


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