Todd Emerson as Peter Hudson (left) and Chris Parker as David Halls in Hudson & Halls Live!
Todd Emerson as Peter Hudson (left) and Chris Parker as David Halls in Hudson & Halls Live!
It’s knives, camera, action for a tribute to our most flamboyant TV cooking couple, Hudson and Halls. Dionne Christian reports
Long before reality television served up the likes of MasterChef, My Kitchen Rules and Come Dine With Me, New Zealand had its own home-grown food show which blended cookery, hilarity and unpredictability: Hudson and Halls, fronted by restaurateurs Peter Hudson and David Hall.
At a time when homosexuality was illegal in New Zealand, they lived and worked together as an openly gay couple. Just as they were introducing New Zealanders to food more exciting than Edmonds Cookbook fare, dinner conversation was changing, too.
Awareness of gay issues was increasing and, by the mid-1980s, homosexual law reform had become a heated debate about human rights and discrimination.
Hudson and Halls didn't directly mention their relationship and, when asked about it, South Pacific Television borrowed a line from Noel Coward: "I'm not sure if they are gay but they certainly are merry."
Their cookery show, which ran from 1976-86, certainly made New Zealanders merry. From 1981, it regularly scored top five ratings in weekly lists of the most watched shows and, that year, they were named Feltex Entertainers of the Year.
Now, theatre-makers too young to remember the duo are staging a story that celebrates Hudson and Halls' love, lives and a slice of our social history. Hudson & Halls Live! transforms the Herald Theatre into a 1980s-style TV studio, with working kitchen, so the audience can play the part of studio guests as the chefs tape their annual 90-minute Christmas special.
Peter Hudson and David Halls. Photo / Supplied
Director/creator Kip Chapman and Todd Emerson, the co-writer who also plays Peter Hudson, say they'd only heard whispers about Hudson and Halls. In fact, Emerson says he knew pretty much nothing about them until a conversation with actor Rima Te Wiata. He was talking to her about completing chef training at the New Zealand School of Food and Wine and Te Wiata waxed lyrical about her days as "the worst waitress" at Hudson and Halls' Auckland restaurant.
Emerson wanted to know why no one had written anything about the men who were surely our first openly gay couple; Te Wiata challenged him to do it. Two years on, the result is the play, commissioned by Silo Theatre and co-created by Chapman and Emerson with contributions from co-stars Chris Parker and Jackie van Beek.
"When I saw an episode of Hudson and Halls, I couldn't believe they were allowed on television," says Chapman. "They were so authentic and nothing like the pre-packaged stuff you see now. But even back then, I can't believe they lived their lives in such an extreme way because New Zealand was " is " a very beige country in terms of the ways in which we express our emotions.
"I mean the colours of our national sports teams are beige and black and it's almost revered not to show emotion - to play it cool - and I think that's a massive problem. It's dangerous if you don't discuss feelings or how to show those feelings in an open way. If we're constantly having to suppress how we feel, that's a terrible thing but here were two guys who didn't bottle up their feelings and lived with passion and joy."
He and Emerson, partners in life and work, agree Hudson & Halls Live! was almost easy to write, partly because the characters were so full-bodied. They hopped online to watch an episode of Hudson and Halls and the 2001 documentary Hudson and Halls: A Love Story. They spoke to friends and colleagues who remembered the two men.
"We asked how they wanted Peter and David portrayed and they wanted it to be a celebration which showed how much they loved one another but also how much they bickered with one another; not to sanitise it," says Chapman. "They are extraordinary historical characters so the writing has been easy. They almost wrote themselves because they were so unique. You don't have to know anything about them before you come to the show but I think going to the NZ Onscreen website and watching the documentary will enrich the experience."
The play focuses on what Chapman says was a turning point in their lives but he is reluctant to say whether that includes the not-so-happy ending. Hudson died of cancer in 1992 and Halls took his own life a year later.
Jackie van Beek rounds out the cast as Ngaire, the TV show's slightly-out-of-her-depth floor manager. Van Beek, who won a 2014 NZ Film Award for her role in the movie What We Do In The Shadows, believes the character represents more conservative New Zealand. One of her favourite scenes is when Ngaire tries to dissuade the cooks from wearing brightly coloured jackets.
"She tells them she thinks it's too over-the-top and may offend the viewers at home," says van Beek who asked her mother whether viewers knew about Hudson and Halls' sexuality. "She told me it was a cooking show so she didn't think it was relevant."
Hudson & Halls Live! is the first time Silo has commissioned a show since 2008. That's partly because of Chapman's reputation as a maker of original and boundary-pushing theatre. It's more down-to-earth than his interactive theatre show, Apollo 13 Mission Control, which has toured nationally and internationally.
As with Apollo 13, he wanted the audience to be part of the action and that meant, right from the outset, there would be cooking on stage. Stage manager Anna Francino is grappling with having to shop every couple of days for fresh veges and dairy; help pre-prep some of the food and keep a watchful eye on an extensive list of health and safety regulations, like having a fire extinguisher handy at all times.
"There's heat, there's liquids, there are sharp knives," laughs Emerson.
