‘New Zealand Tomorrow is one of the best things Guy Williams has ever done,’ writes Tom Augustine.
If I ever want to explain to people living outside of New Zealand what this country is really like, I will inevitably show them New Zealand Today, Guy Williams’ local-interest comedy series that doubles as a kind of anthropological study of the many idiosyncrasies and oddities of Kiwi life. Williams’ long-running series, an evolution of a Jono & Ben segment, casts Williams as a goofball outsider, sticking out like a sore thumb in an absurd tan suit, but crucially excelled because of the genuine affection it displayed for its small-town denizens, whether they be the twenty-fuckin’-whacks lady, local legends, small town politicians, conspiracy theorists or random passersby.
At its best, New Zealand Today demonstrated a surprising level of sophistication as a work of comedy – likely the greatest ever segment, an investigation into the fate of Opononi’s beloved Opo the Dolphin, features the kinds of throwaway gags and one-of-a-kind side characters (Herbie Leef! Jim Job! The museum ladies!) that wouldn’t be out of place in a classic Simpsons episode. Running for four seasons, the show was imperfect, undoubtedly – its affectionate tone clashing badly with portraits of bad-faith actors like Leo Molloy, for one – and as awareness (and, for certain political divisions, distaste) for Williams grew, his ability to draw attention to authentic pockets of small-town comedy diminished. Even late in its run, though, Williams could occasionally pull absolute heaters out of the bag – the episode in which he travels to Ōamaru to try and get its residents to correctly pronounce the name of the town in which they live, only to find himself embroiled in the local Steampunk community, is an instant classic.
New Zealand Tomorrow, the new iteration of the series, has felt bizarrely under-promoted – it’s only by following Williams on Instagram that I knew the six-part series had dropped at all. It’s even more bizarre when one considers the overall rise in quality the series has undergone – New Zealand Tomorrow is one of the best things Williams has ever done, a high-point for the property and a strong contender for the best Kiwi show of the year. It demonstrates a genuine evolution for Williams and New Zealand Today both – in structure, approach and style, while still retaining the essential, good-hearted spirit that made the original series such a success.
That it has reinvigorated itself just as the show was starting to show signs of heavy wear and tear is an enormously welcome surprise. There’s a compelling narrative element introduced to New Zealand Tomorrow that wasn’t there before – where New Zealand Today insisted on not being taken seriously, Tomorrow is forced into a position where it must take itself seriously, because there is literally no one else to do the work of in-depth reportage that Williams finds himself doing following the closure of Newshub.
There’s an undercurrent of anger to Tomorrow that has been hinted at in other Today segments (like Williams joining the Treaty Principles Bill march, for one), as well as a genuine emotional vein of something like melancholy. Part of this is a natural extension of the show’s new approach – where Today covered as many as three local interest stories an episode, the entire six episodes of Tomorrow are dedicated to the town of Waimate and the incredibly dire state of its water supply.
Widely reported at the time but perhaps predictably shoved aside for more salacious news items, Waimate is at the centre of an urgent, unfolding crisis in New Zealand’s water supply – the presence of nitrates, tied to a raft of health issues including bowel cancer, as a result of severe over-farming of the land on which we live. It’s a story that touches on a vast range of pressing modern discourses – the class divide, climate change, the difficulties inherent in holding government bodies to account, the ongoing scourge of colonialism, the dearth of proper journalism in New Zealand’s rural communities, and so on. That it’s Williams – a jokester and self-styled “volunteer journalist”, woefully unequipped yet forced to investigate what is essentially Aotearoa’s own Dark Waters scandal is both the humour and tragedy of New Zealand Tomorrow.
The show is starkly bookended by scenes of Williams wandering through the gutted Newshub offices. It’s a bleak twist of fate spurred on by a modern world where comedians are upheld as the ultimate truth-tellers (see also Karen O’Leary’s regular spot on Paddy Gower’s Got Issues, another show that must present journalism under the guise of “infotainment”), much to our detriment – in the end, only a comedian is left standing in the ruins, forced to tell the truth.
Williams’ lack of ability in this area is an admittedly great bit – throughout Tomorrow, Williams will find himself hot on the trail of a new lead, only to get sidetracked by the kind of small-town shenanigans which were Today’s bread-and-butter. The series maintains a healthy balance between hilarity and solemnity, though – Williams doggedly pursues interviews with a range of key players, including an unsettlingly greasy Nick Smith, hilariously dejected ecologist Mike Joy and the bureaucratic labyrinth of ECan, providing crucial substance that Williams’ gags cannot undercut.
That one comes away from the show informed, angry and inspired is evidence enough of how Tomorrow has elevated Today’s original conception. Along the way, a loving but not always pretty portrait of Waimate emerges – the warm kookiness of various residents, including Bev, a woman nonchalantly en route to the emergency room to see her husband, who is mid-heart attack; the owner of a local wallaby farm and her sidekick, a talking cockatoo named Blackie; a local yokel with a burn pit and an obsession with the Warriors; and a fan of the local takeaway shop who unexpectedly forms the series’ gently affecting emotional core, provides a vital heartbeat for Tomorrow.
But the other side is present too – an early visit to a local historic pub is about as unvarnished a portrait of smalltown racism, misogyny and aggression as I can remember in recent years, while an early scene in which Williams pays a visit to a church choir singing a self-composed ditty about how the water in Waimate is fine, and you can totally drink it, feels positively dystopian. Here, too, Williams’ trademark silliness remains, but is deployed more cuttingly – the good sits alongside the bad and the ugly, often uncomfortably close. Indeed, the things that make New Zealand a beautiful place to live are constantly in conversation with their darker parts. It’s what makes New Zealand the country it is, and what makes New Zealand Tomorrow such a breath of fresh air.
New Zealand Tomorrow is available to watch now ThreeNow.