Standing Room Only for Sunday 20 March 2016

12:42  NZSO Musical Director Edo de Waart

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra will be tested when Dutch Mahler specialist Maestro Edo de Waart takes up the baton for the first time as its new Music Director.  He's about to arrive in New Zealand to conduct his latest charge and Lynn Freeman discovers, he's picked a work that's a true test for any orchestra  - Mahler's Symphony Number 3 in D minor.

12:50  New Maori TV series Kairakau

Toa Fraser's film The Dead Lands showcased Maori weaponry and hand to hand combat.  Expect to see more in a new ten part Māori TV series, filmed around Rotorua. Kairakau is ambitious,and it's a first -  a ten part docu-drama that draws on historic events and oral traditions. The many fight scenes are choreographed by Wetini Mitai-Ngatai  who's an expert in Maori weapons - how to make them and how to use them.  Lynn Freeman talks to Wetini and series producer Lana Northcroft.

1:10 At The Movies

This week Simon Morris reviews 10 Cloverfield Lane, Grimsby and A bigger splash.

1:35  Shortland Street producer Maxine Fleming

Maxine Fleming has been creating New Zealand TV drama for more than 20 years - as a writer and a script-editor.  She's been associated with the long-running Shortland Street since the hospital-based soap started back in the early 1990s.  Until recently she was Shortland Street's Senior Story Editor but now she's taken over as the show's producer.  Lynn Freeman talks to Maxine about how the New Zealand TV drama scene has changed since she started out.

1:50   Pioneer music-store owner Charles Begg

In our occasional series with the website Audio Culture's Simon Grigg, another look back at our musical history.  Today Simon Morris asks him about one of the true founding fathers of New Zealand music. In fact, without piano-maker and publisher Charles Begg there might not have been any New Zealand music.

2:04  The Laugh Track - Pax Assadi

Today's guest is Iranian-Pakistani-Kiwi comedian Pax Assadi, of the trio Frickin' Dangerous Bros.  Pax's picks include Omid Djalili, Chris Chappelle, Chris De Lia and Aamer Rahman.

2:26 Culture jamming. celebrity, and artistic expression

Culture jamming is the practice of subverting an established icon or brand for artistic, political, or comedic reasons. But what happens when it gets co-opted by the very people and institutions that are being made fun of? 

Recently Coca Cola launched an online campaign allowing people to make GIFs to advertise this massive corporation's product.  But they've banned over three thousand words from being used in the user-made ads. How has the culture jamming community reacted to these limits?

Ian Bogost from the Georgia Institute of Technology, who has written about this campaign for The Atlantic magazine, spoke to Standing Room Only's Shaun D Wilson about culture jamming; which extends to the celebrity mashup art of Brandon Bird.

2:40   Poet Bob Orr

Auckland poet Bob Orr has just won the Lauris Edmond Memorial Award for Poetry - a big pat on the back for his writing that spans five decades.  The prize is given biennially in recognition of a distinguished contribution to New Zealand poetry.  For 30 years Bob's also worked as a waterman for Ports of Auckland, taking pilots out to vessels from super yachts to tankers.  Lynn Freeman asked Bob if he knew the honour was coming his way?

 

2:49 Theatre director Leo Gene Peters

For director Leo Gene Peters from production company A Slightly Isolated Dog, theatre should be a shared experience, where the audience can become involved in the story-telling process. Leo's latest production is Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde, featuring a cast of French clowns, an eye for detail and a unique flair for humour. Lucy Smith went along to gain more of an insight into Leo Gene Peters' world of theatre.

3:06 Drama at 3

Part 2 of The Explorers' Club,  by Nell Benjamin, an LA Theatreworks production.