At the start of his new show explaining everything everyone needs to know about Matariki, Tamati Rimene-Sproat is pondering the heavens. “When I look up, I see the sky in all its majesty,” he says in his best TV-presenter voice as we gaze at a glowing Milky Way. “It’s where we come from … well, I come from Masterton. But that’s beside the point.”
And so begins his second instalment of From Hongi to Hāngī and Everything In Between, the series built around Rimene-Sproat’s engaging, lighthearted and highly amusing ability to explain te ao Māori to anyone who might not know what that term means but may be willing to find out.
Last year, the first show about marae etiquette won him the best entertainment presenter gong at the local television awards. That, and the show’s reception, might have confirmed he’d made the right move by leaving TVNZ, where in a few years he had gone from Te Karere to Seven Sharp to Sunday, before going out on his own. In his two years on Seven Sharp, he’d been largely used as the light-relief reporter on a current affairs show where the just-for-fun factor is already high. Maybe it was the moustache.
“When I shifted to Seven Sharp, I felt like I was playing this classic Billy T James cheeky Māori-boy role and I got sick of it really quickly because there wasn’t any depth to it. It was just 100% light and not a lot of shade. To be honest, I wanted to leave TVNZ then.”
He was happier at Sunday, which provided a chance to learn about deeper small-screen storytelling. But having got what many journalists would see as a coveted role on a current affairs flagship, after two years he figured it just wasn’t him.
“I remember having a conversation with [host] Miriama Kamo. She was saying, ‘Use this opportunity because you could be in this position for the next 20 years’. I was like, ‘I don’t want to. I love you, Miri, and I love some of the producers who have been on there for decades. But that’s not me. it’s not where I want to be.’ And I think that was a bit of an eye-opener for her.
“I was 27 when I joined Sunday. I was still super-young. I didn’t know what I wanted to do then and I still don’t, really.”
For now, he’s happy with using the screen persona he’s developed on FHtH and the likes of his poignant but funny Anzac Day doco about the state of the nation’s RSA clubs.
He may be from Masterton, but it would be fair to say Rimene-Sproat (Rangitāne, Ngāti Kahungunu) comes from a privileged background. His mother, Sonya Rimene, has been a senior public servant in various ministries and is now at Te Tumu Paeroa Office of the Māori Trustee. She featured in a story her son did for Sunday about the revival of moko kauae. His father, John Sproat, is a senior finance and banking lawyer serving on many boards.
As a kid, Rimene-Sproat attended kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa, eventually attending and graduating from Te Panekiretanga o Te Reo Māori/the School of Māori Language Excellence. In his late teens, Rimene-Sproat spent a gap year in Dumfries, Scotland, working on the farm owned by cousins of his Scottish-born father. He’d thought he might become a farmer after leaving Wellington College. Scotland showed him he wasn’t very good at it, he says.
Although, he is still an outdoors kind of guy. He has also fronted Wild Kai Legends, one of the many hunting shows on local television. There are so many, in fact, you might wonder if the nation’s pest-control problem might be solved quicker if fewer guys with guns were doing pieces to camera. He’s not sure if he’ll be heading for the hills again.
“I don’t think we can fund this many hunting shows for too much longer.”
Maybe get them all into one big survival-of-the-fittest series?
“Yeah, just go to war Hunger Games style,” he says, laughing.
There’s a fair amount of kai gathered in the forthcoming show, which is done mostly under the guidance of astronomer, reigning New Zealander of the year and fellow natural comic Rangi Mātāmua.
“Even he likes to have fun with these concepts that are really considered tapu and a little bit heavy – that scary Māori stuff. He humanises that and makes it tangible for an audience.”
Rimene-Sproat and the Massey University professor of mātauranga Māori lead us through the nine stars in the Matariki cluster and their individual connections to Māori culture and the natural environment – and food sources – on Earth.
So, between the contributions of many guest stars, that means spearfishing in the Bay of Islands (warning: presenter in Speedos), community gardening in Huntly and strenuous traditional massage in places that may hurt for days afterwards. Rimene-Sproat also heads to Cape Reinga/Te Rerenga Wairua in the programme’s explanation of how Matariki serves as a time to think about those who died in the past year. And to finish, a special Matariki makeover of the song How Bizarre (warning: even more Speedos).
As with his marae-protocol show, it’s a highly enjoyable crash course. Possibly even one that can be enjoyed by those worried about – in the recent words of well-known cultural commentator Mike Hosking – “the Māorification of New Zealand”.
“It has an understanding that in the TVNZ 1 audience on a Friday night at 7.30pm, the kids will know what we’re talking about and will probably roll their eyes and go, ‘Really? We get this at school.’
“But for the parents and grandparents, it’s easy to forget what the holiday is actually about and what the stars represent. There’s a lot of value in reminding people of what it is and what we, as a country, are trying to achieve with this holiday.”
There are challenges that come with shows boiling down Māori knowledge to essentials: not everyone has the same understanding.
“That is probably the hardest part of this kind of storytelling. There’s no such thing as generic ways of doing things within te ao Māori. You can go from one valley to another valley and it will have completely different stories.
“What Rangi has been trying to do with Matariki is to say, ‘This is what I know and this is what I’m willing to share with everyone.’ I think that’s the best way of going about it because if we are trying to explain it to a TVNZ 1 audience and go into those kinds of differences and complexities, it’s just going to confuse people.
“So, there is an element of watering it down so it’s digestible for the audience while upholding the mana of the kōrero and knowing that kōrero comes from a genuine place.”
And if he has to play a funny, cheeky version of himself to get that message across, Rimene-Sproat is happy doing it on stories like this or planned future FHtH instalments on Māori music and the Treaty of Waitangi.
“I see the value in being that humorous character because without that, it’s really hard to engage with an audience that would usually just turn the channel off. At the end of the day, if I make someone laugh and they learn something, that’s mint. That’s my job and I’m happy to be that guy.
“I’ve almost formulated this character of myself. But I’ve taken 90% of myself into this character and 10% is reserved for my whānau, my wife and the people who know me.”
From Hongi to Hāngī and Everything In Between: Matariki, TVNZ 1, July 14, 7.30pm.
