Roger Hall

Roger Leighton Hall, CNZM, QSO (b. 1939) is one of New Zealand's most successful playwrights, arguably best-known for comedies that carry a vein of social criticism and feelings of pathos.^[1]

Biography

Early years

Hall was born in Essex, England, and educated at London's University College School from 1952 until 1955, when he embarked on a career in insurance. He emigrated to New Zealand in 1958 and continued to work in insurance, also performing in amateur theatre in the city of Wellington. He continued to act while attending Wellington Teachers’ College and Victoria University of Wellington; fellow actor John Clarke praised his impression of then Prime Minister Keith Holyoake as the template for all others. Hall began writing plays for children while teaching, which included a spell at Berhampore School, Wellington.^[1]

Career

Hall began writing for television in the 1960s - over the next four decades his television output would grow to include one-off plays, documentaries, pioneering New Zealand television series Buck House and Pukemanu and time on political satire Spin Doctors. Alongside his writing, he appeared on-screen with actor Grant Tilly on 60s sketch show In View of the Circumstances.^[2]

Hall's best-known work in New Zealand is probably his breakthrough play Glide Time (1976), which depicts the frustrations and petty triumphs of a group of so-called 'public servants' working in a government office. It gave rise to a radio show, a one-off television adaptation, then popular 1980s television series Gliding On. A sequel play and television series, both called Market Forces also followed, set in the "restructured" public service environment of New Zealand's post-Rogernomics era.

The characters of The Share Club (1987, before the Stock Market crash) and After the Crash (1988) were seen on television series Neighbourhood Watch.

Hall's best-known works internationally are Middle Age Spread (1978, revised 1980) and Conjugal Rites (1991). Middle Age Spread revolves around a headmaster who has an affair with a young teacher. The tragi-comedy had a run in the West End and in 1979 became one the first New Zealand plays to be transformed into a feature film.^[2] Grant Tilly starred, as he had when the play first debuted in Wellington. Conjugal Rites was made into a situation comedy series in the UK starring Gwen Taylor and Michael Williams .^[3]

Hall was a Burns Fellow in 1977. In 2006 he was the subject of documentary Who Laughs Last.^[4]

See also

• Television in New Zealand

References

External links

• "Roger Hall" NZ On Screen. March 2009. Retrieved 13 April 2012.
• Roger Hall bibliography at the New Zealand Literature File