Guy Williams and Leo Molloy on New Zealand Today (Image: New Zealand Today)
Guy Williams and Leo Molloy on New Zealand Today (Image: New Zealand Today)

OPINIONPop CultureJuly 15, 2022

What was Guy Williams trying to do?

Guy Williams and Leo Molloy on New Zealand Today (Image: New Zealand Today)
Guy Williams and Leo Molloy on New Zealand Today (Image: New Zealand Today)

When political candidates appear on comedy shows, they nearly always win. Mad Chapman asks Guy Williams who he thought won in his New Zealand Today segment with Leo Molloy.

During the 2016 US election campaign, Donald Trump said something ridiculous and or offensive seemingly every other day. The remarks would be written about and criticised around the world, and then he’d say something else. It was a cycle that, in hindsight, worked effectively as a publicity campaign for a candidate who was looking for the votes of the exact people who loved the offensive remarks. But there was one moment, as the election results filtered in and Trump was confirmed as president, that stuck out for its inadvertent endorsement of a polarising candidate.

When Trump appeared on The Tonight Show and Jimmy Fallon tousled his hair. 

On the latest episode of New Zealand Today, Guy Williams dedicated more than half of a 22-minute episode to Leo Molloy and his Auckland mayoralty campaign. Williams didn’t tousle Molloy’s hair but he may as well have.

Molloy appeared on Williams’ show and spent a large portion of the time being ridiculous and offensive. That’s not new: Molloy has developed a personal brand out of being abrasive, offensive and, at times yes, a little bit funny. On New Zealand Today, he was able to be his most outrageous self. There’s an interview segment where he repeatedly refers to “soft cock” past mayors and calls Williams an ableist slur. If the segment had ended there, perhaps we would have ended with a net neutral: fans of Molloy loving his callousness and detractors being reminded of his reputation. 

Instead the segment continues. Williams’ dad makes an appearance in support of Molloy, followed by vox pops with members of the public (at least half of whom appear visibly drunk, which is not uncommon for subjects of New Zealand Today and a whole other issue) who voice either supportive or ambivalent views of Molloy. At one point Williams’ ponders whether he is in fact helping Molloy by featuring him on the show. And then the segment continues.

Williams agrees to fight Molloy in a caricatured boxing match. “If you win, I’ll help you with your political campaign,” he says. “If I win, you’ve got to give up your mayoral campaign.” By that point, 11 minutes into what looked like a genuine, albeit combative, collaboration between the two men, Molloy had already won. 

The segment continues. The two men fight, Williams loses – providing lovely visuals for Molloy as someone who can “knock out” an opponent – and a reluctant endorsement of Leo Molloy for Auckland mayor runs. 

Nearly 14 minutes of prime-time television dedicated to one mayoral candidate. It was jarring to watch, because I genuinely couldn’t decipher what is Guy Williams trying to do?

This isn’t the first time Williams has interviewed a polarising figure on New Zealand Today. He’s spoken to anti-vaxxers, anti-abortionists, white supremacists and more in his show with the tagline: “Volunteer journalist Guy Williams visits small-town New Zealand to investigate what he thinks are the most interesting stories in New Zealand today.” In season two, Williams attempted to “rehabilitate” the Christchurch Wizard who had lost favour with the public after sexist remarks. Williams allowed him to say more sexist things only to then attempt to rebuild his image through a series of convoluted gags.

Williams is the host of a comedy show airing on prime-time television, and I watched his segment with Molloy genuinely unsure what his aim was in filming it. At one point in the segment, Williams himself ponders, “Am I actually helping him?” I was wondering the same thing. So I asked him. 

“I thought it was clear in this story that I was very anti Leo Molloy and I think the interview reflects badly on him,” Williams said over the phone. I suggested that it could be viewed as the two of them being in on the joke together, given the multiple settings and Molloy filming scripted elements. 

“I just thought the interview was so wild that that would be viewed on its own merits. And I’m pretty proud of the interview but if the rest of the story doesn’t condemn him enough- I don’t know if that’s my job and maybe I shouldn’t have platformed him but I watched it last night and I was pretty happy with the story.”

Molloy’s opponents have since condemned his appearance on the show, to which Molloy responded: “I’ve known Guy’s father for more 40 years. The show was theatrical, I played up as instructed, all in good humour. Guy remains a friend and in fact visited our campaign HQ last week.”

Last year, David Farrier expressed his regret about interviewing then-Conservative Party leader Colin Craig in a sauna in 2015.  The segment was funny and Craig said some outrageous things, and then went on to be revealed as a particularly bad person. 

Farrier referred to himself as having done to Craig “what Jimmy Fallon did to Donald Trump. Fallon, ruffling Trump’s hair. Me, topless, joking around with Colin. It was an image that instantly excused all that bad shit.”

Balancing comedy and satire with political journalism is near impossible to execute. Farrier is a journalist but his sauna series was decidedly comedic, and that’s largely where it fell down. Williams is a self-proclaimed “volunteer journalist” hosting a comedy show. Any political figures appearing on a comedy show would automatically fall into the “soft media” pile unless something extraordinary happens. Rarely does something extraordinary happen.

But Williams was insistent that the segment would have a negative impact on Molloy’s campaign, as he intended. “I don’t think he’s a serious candidate,” he said. “I think the people who vote in Auckland mayoral campaigns are old and quite conservative. I would be shocked if this was a huge boost to his campaign.

“I don’t think that people who follow me will like Leo Molloy or like the way Leo comes out of the story. Even my editor was going ‘I think this will end his campaign’.”

As of writing, there are already hundreds of comments on media Facebook posts about the interview. The vast majority of them are positive towards Molloy, with a number of people proclaiming to want to vote for him specifically because of the segment. Many viewers noted that it was “a satirical skit” and therefore simply there for a laugh. 

A selection of comments from two facebook posts about the segment

To my suggestion that Williams may have inadvertently aired a 13-minute promotional video for Molloy, Williams was unconvinced.

“It’s interesting how we view things. Did you come out of it thinking you liked Leo after that?”

“No,” I replied. “I didn’t come out thinking I liked him, I came out of it thinking you liked him.”

He paused for a second. “Damn, you got me there good.”

Williams was clear in his stance against Molloy, but didn’t connect the good optics of a comedy show appearance, no matter how combative, for a mayoral candidate. Molloy himself said on the show that “as long as you’re talking about me, and they’re talking about me, I’m winning”. Since this morning there have been half a dozen news articles about the segment (and now this). 

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Madeleine Chapman
— Editor

The season has been filmed already and no other candidates will feature. We went back and forth on how a segment on a show that rates well and regularly gets hundreds of thousands of views on Youtube and social media may impact a local election campaign. Williams was pleasant throughout and defended his decision (“no one made me do that segment”). As we wrapped up, he made a polite observation. 

“I think you did a really good job of putting me on the back foot a little bit, yeah, that’s your job as a journalist and a reporter, right?”

He’s right. Watching the New Zealand Today segment, Molloy never looked on the back foot. Whatever Williams’ intention was in featuring Molloy on his show, the outcome is that Molloy won, in every sense. And may yet win again.

Keep going!
Lesley Manville (centre) stars in Sherwood (Image: TVNZ / Design: Tina Tiller)
Lesley Manville (centre) stars in Sherwood (Image: TVNZ / Design: Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureJuly 13, 2022

Sherwood is the British drama of the year

Lesley Manville (centre) stars in Sherwood (Image: TVNZ / Design: Tina Tiller)
Lesley Manville (centre) stars in Sherwood (Image: TVNZ / Design: Tina Tiller)

Everything you need to know about the compelling new BBC crime drama that just landed on TVNZ+. 

Warning: contains mild spoilers for the first episode. 

What’s all this then?

Sherwood is the next big British drama, and all the critics in the UK have been raving about it. After premiering over there last month, The Guardian called Sherwood the cleverest, most compelling show they’d seen in years, The Times said it was “just about perfect” and “a triumph”, while the Daily Telegraph reckoned it was a “layered exploration of community, class and enmity”. Basically, it’s British drama at its best, and now it’s available on TVNZ+.

I can’t believe everyone liked a show about Sherwood that doesn’t even feature Maid Marian.

No Maid Marian, but there is a sheriff of Nottingham (Screengrab: TVNZ)

Sherwood was initially inspired by real events from the Nottinghamshire mining community where writer James Graham (The Crown, Quiz, Brexit: The Uncivil War) grew up. When two unexpected murders occur in the ex-mining village of Sherwood, the search for the killer reveals a community still divided by the miner strikes of the 1980s. Sherwood is about the political and social legacy of Thatcher’s government as much as it is about a murder investigation.

So it’s a whodunnit?

Unusually, Sherwood reveals the identity of the murderer at the end of episode one. Viewers are let in on the secret, while the police go on a massive manhunt and the village tries to make sense of the crimes. It’s more of a whydunnit than a whodunnit, and even though we know who the murderer is, Sherwood is rich with twists and tension that will keep viewers hooked for all six episodes.

Who will I recognise in this?

Sherwood features a stellar ensemble cast, including Lesley Manville (Mum), Joanne Froggatt (Downton Abbey), David Morrissey (The Walking Dead), Kevin Doyle (Downton Abbey) and Lorraine Ashbourne (Bridgerton).

Lesley Manville and Alun Armstrong star in Sherwood (Screengrab: TVNZ)

Manville plays Julie Jackson, wife of murder victim Gary (Alun Armstrong). Gary is a former miner who remains proud of his past on the picket line, and who never forgave his enemies – including Julie’s sister Claire and her husband, who live across the street from the Jacksons. Gary managed to piss off everyone in Sherwood while he was alive, but was his murder related to the strikes?

Detective Ian St Clair (David Morrissey) returns to his hometown to investigate the crime and discovers a village still simmering with the bitterness created on the picket line three decades earlier, when not all Nottinghamshire miners went on strike. St Clair also discovers rumours of “spy cops” still living in the village – undercover police officers who took on false identities during the 1980s to infiltrate mining communities and monitor striking workers.

So you’re saying that Sherwood is way more intense than Midsomer Murders?

It’s the mix of fact with fiction, the thoughtful script and the brilliant performances from the impressive cast that elevates Sherwood far beyond your standard British murder mystery. On one level, Sherwood is a classic British police drama about a tricky murder investigation, but it’s also a deep dive into a community with a dark, festering past. It’s like a grittier, more political version of Broadchurch, with the beaches and sunshine swapped out for collieries and unionism.

Tensions run high (Screengrab: TVNZ)

At the heart of the drama is the legacy of the 1984 miners strike, and the show begins with archival footage from the picket line that sets the tone for the rest of the series. Sherwood has a powerful sense of place (think Happy Valley, or Billy Elliot), and the multi-layered story slowly reveals itself to expose a working-class town filled with secrets, grudges and long-held grief. Sherwood is about relationships and families and the power of connection. Everyone in Sherwood is connected to everyone else, but nobody wants to talk about it.

Nobody wants to talk about Robin Hood, either. I heard Gary was shot by a crossbow arrow. Robin of Loxley, is that you?

Mystery solved.

Sherwood is available to stream on TVNZ+.