David McPhail
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David McPhail | |
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 McPhail in 2011, rehearsing a play | |
| Born | David Alexander McPhail 11 April 1945 New Zealand |
| Occupation(s) | Comedian, actor |
David Alexander McPhail ONZM QSM (born 11 April 1945) is a New Zealand comedic actor and writer whose television career spans four decades. McPhail first won fame on sketch comedy show A Week of It, partly thanks to his impressions of New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon. He went on to appear in multiple series of sketch show McPhail and Gadsby, and hit comedy Letter to Blanchy. All three shows featured his longtime friend Jon Gadsby.
Career
Christchurch-based McPhail had appeared on television as a reporter and occasional actor before winning fame in 1977 with A Week of It. One of the earliest New Zealand comedy shows, both to satirise politicians and win a wide audience, the series mixed sketches lampooning politics, sport, and television. A Week of It ran for three seasons.
McPhail went on to create and appear in at least seven series of skit show McPhail and Gadsby, co-starring his A Week of It colleague Jon Gadsby, and backwoods comedy Letter to Blanchy, which spawned a 2008 play.
McPhail starred in the two seasons of the series Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby. McPhail plays Gormsby, a dominating, old-fashioned school teacher who ruffles feathers when he begins teaching at a school in a low income area. McPhail went on to play eccentric superhero The Green Termite in The Amazing Extraordinary Friends.
His autobiography The Years Before My Death: Memories of a Comic Life was published by Longacre in 2010.
Honours and awards
In the 1992 New Year Honours, McPhail was awarded the Queen's Service Medal for public services.[1] In the 2008 New Year Honours, he was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to television and the theatre.[2]
Credits (incomplete)
Television
- A Week of It (1977–1979)
- McPhail and Gadsby (1980–1987, 1997–1998)
- Issues (1991)
- Letter to Blanchy (1996–1997)
- Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby (2005–2006)
- The Life & Times of Te Tutu (director)
- Crumpy (director)
- Then Comes Love by James Griffin (director)
- Amazing Extraordinary Friends (2007–2010)
- The White Elephant (2012)[3]
Theatre
- Then Comes Love (director, 2005)
- Muldoon (one-man play, New Zealand tour)
- Alone it Stands – Court Theatre, Christchurch (director, 2005)[4]
- Muldoon – Downstage Theatre, Auckland (25 June – 17 July 2004) — a play about the former New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon
References
- ^ "No. 52768". The London Gazette (2nd supplement). 31 December 1991. p. 31.
- ^ "New Year honours list 2008". Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 31 December 2007. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
- ^ "The White Elephant". NZBS on Demand.[permanent dead link]
- ^ [1]
External links
- David McPhail at IMDb
- Agent's info page
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
- 1945 births
- Living people
- New Zealand male stage actors
- New Zealand male television actors
- New Zealand male comedians
- New Zealand screenwriters
- Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit
- New Zealand satirists
- Recipients of the Queen's Service Medal
- 21st-century New Zealand male actors
- 20th-century New Zealand writers
- 21st-century New Zealand writers