Life + Style 19 February 2016

21 August, 2015

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Your very own piece of paradise See page 2 Photo: Bruce Barnard.

THE WEEKEND

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Music & the arts | Kitchen living | On the home front...

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Paradise found Tauranga’s new radio station It’s unlike any paradise you’ve ever seen – four walls of concrete, the rooms blackened out with curtains and foam padding, and in mid-February, little to be seen of the actual summer vista that lies outside.

John Stephens, director.

The Paradise FM crew.

Hunter Boyu, breakfast co-host.

areas as the station grows.

“We’re for the people. We will be dedicating about half of all programming to community radio – involving community groups, getting out there amongst the people and talking to everyone from school fairs to major concerts. It’s what the Bay of Plenty needs.”

Laura Weaser

Photos: Bruce Barnard.

But inside the lower quarters of a Tauranga home are the makings of one man’s radio paradise, a community station that director David Williams says fills a gap that is lacking on our airwaves.

Paradise 105.4FM has been a longtime goal of David’s and his collective friends group in Wellington, when they noticed there was nothing in New Zealand to cater for the type of music they loved and listened to.

“We thought it was about time someone did something about that.”

Launched on Valentine’s Day, Paradise FM caters for men and women, aged 35-65, who are seeking an alternative to mainstream radio play.

“We play a whole mix of genres, starting with Americana and under that banner comes alternative country, folk, reggae, blues, plus we also feature a lot of NZ music and contemporary tracks from rock albums, with an additional emphasis on Irish and Scottish music.

“Further down the road, we’d love to have live acts in the studio too, playing their music and coming in for a chat about their work.”

Then there’s the comedy factor – hosts are all witty in their own right, with quips a-plenty at their fingertips. The humour is evident already, as Life + Style tries to pull all personalities into one room, a task that frequently saw the crew in fits of laughter.

It’s also David and co-director John Stephens’ goal to become a community focused entity, as Tauranga currently has no community radio.

“Everything, bar one local show, is based in Auckland, so I think we have a real advantage having feet on the ground here in Tauranga,” says David.

“We see community radio as a huge opportunity to connect with locals, chatting with them about their events or supporting nonfor-profit groups in the area.”

To complement David’s drive for community, passionate locals are currently at the heart of Paradise. While David has no radio experience – his background is in hospitality – the radio is a real passion project and has already garnered a small group together to support his venture.

“We’re doing a lot of this with volunteer labour,” he explains.

“But the long term is to broaden our horizons, and ensure longevity and support for our staff.”

The long-term plan is to move to a more visible site and David is optimistic it won’t be long before they explore other

19 February, 2016 21 August, 2015 Candles in mason jars and iron recipe book holders: Available in the CBD at Indelible, 39 Devonport Rd.

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19August, February, 2016 life+style The Weekend Sun 21 2015

Photo: David Tauranga

When it comes to comedy

‘Funny is funny’ Tauranga playwright Devon Williamson is a huge fan of the ‘wonderfully absurd’.

For example, of all the scenes he’s written, his favourite is in his 2013 play ‘My Inlaws Are Outlaws’.

It involves Finn, an Irish assassin, who’s been trying to teach his idiot son Donal the deadly arts. But Donal’s more fixated on the idea his name means ‘chief ’ – which he takes to mean ‘Indian Chief ’.

“He kind of blackmails his dad to call him chief,” explains Devon.

“When Finn finally does, Donal’s hiding behind a window wearing an Indian headdress, pops up and goes ‘yer caulled?’”

“It’s just so wrong. It reinforces the idiocy and there was quite a bit, I mean, Donal was frightened of doorways because sometimes they’d be there, but then disappear when the door was closed.”

‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ is a saying Devon’s very familiar with, as his foray into playwright began due

Devon Williamson and wife Kim.

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to his struggle to find plays “relevant to blokes” that he could produce.

Having written smaller shows previously, he penned his first full-length play ‘Understanding Women!’ in 2003 which was hugely well-received and convinced him to continue.

Since then, he’s gone on to create 10 comedic tales, which in total have been performed about 70 times by theatre companies in New Zealand, Australia, North America and the United Kingdom.

“I just love the fun of them and the thing with comedies is they can be filled with drama too. You can have all of those dramatic qualities alongside those laugh out loud moments at the same time too.”

For Devon, the big thing for him when writing is finding a reason why a bunch of diverse people are in the same place at the same time. It’s all about finding an opportunity for characters to interact and where there can be a status quo can be challenged.

His characters are not based on any person in particular, but at the same time, his characters are all identifiable, he says.

19 February, 2016 21 August, 2015

“I just love the fun of them and the thing with comedies is they can be filled with drama too”

“I’m after characters that people will say ‘Oh yeah, I know someone like that’ when they’ve seen my shows. I’m not like Noel Coward that’s for sure, in his show ‘Hay Fever’ he wrote about people he knew and none of them would talk to him again for the rest of his life,” he says laughing.

Of his 10 shows, nine of them have been performed overseas and Devon says he’ll also create Australian, UK and American versions of all the plays he writes.

He says very little that has to be changed, so if someone says ‘mate’ in the Kiwi version then it becomes ‘buddy’ or ‘pal’ in the US version.

“What I’ve found fascinating is, two of my plays where I wasn’t sure if the humour would work in America were interestingly the two which were picked up over there. Comedies are fairly universal, because at the end of the day funny is funny.

“Kiwis are quite fortunate because we see a lot of American and British stuff.

So it means we have quite wide comic influences without really realising it.

“A theatre in Kansas recently performed my show ‘The Old People

are Revolting!’ and you could see the audience commenting on their Facebook page.

“That’s the brilliant thing about social media, you get a little bit of feedback from the theatre but you don’t know if they’re being polite or not, but with social media you find out the audiences opinions, warts and all.”

David Tauranga

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February, 2016 life+style The Weekend Sun 2119August, 2015

It was worth it to give the kids a fighting chance in the challenging property market.

Home is where the heart is Theresa puts on a good show for the kids

Inside the Judea house of Theresa Tingey, Life + Style photographer Bruce Barnard snaps away, capturing the mum-of-four in a place she feels, well, at home.

Although outwardly confident and full of fun, Theresa jokes being the centre of the camera’s attention is her least favourite location – even in a place she feels at ease. But as the newest star on TV One’s ‘Our First Home’, surely she’s used to it by now?

“Somewhat, but try seeing yourself on a massive billboard in the middle of Auckland!” she says with a laugh.

Photos: Bruce Barnard.

The Fujitsu

Theresa, her son Josh Tingey, his girlfriend Bex Wotton and her father Henry Wotton are one-third of the renovation reality TV show’s next set of family teams, all vying to make a profit on a West Auckland property and give their children a head start with their own first home.

The Kiwi show’s second season once again sees the family teams purchase and renovate a potentially profitable do-up, then for eight weeks, they will renovate in a bid to add the most value to their property at auction.

It’s not just the hard work our families have to contend with. There’s also the business of living together under the same roof, the navigation of family dynamics and power struggles as the parents loosen the reins and learn to let the kids take control.

But the rewards are great: Last year all three families won big on the show, with the winning Schreuder family walking away with $290,400.

Being the ‘unconventional’ family of the show – typically teams have two parents, their son or daughter, and their partner – was an advantage, Theresa says, as there was a certain degree of politeness that potentially put an end to any brewing disagreements.

“In lots of ways it was the best combo. There was no emotion behind it, it was like we are on the job and that’s it. I think Josh had said to me at the beginning, ‘Actually Mum I’m glad you’re doing it, in other families there a three-to-one scenario, but for

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“It’s a great project show because it shows anyone can do it. You just need to be smart and you can afford to change your environment, the look and feel of a home”

us we are a balanced team and that made it easier.”

In a weekend the Tingey-Wotton’s changed forever, and within a week they were facing the reality that would be an eight-week renovation challenge under the microscope of camera crews, and later, the New Zealand public.

“On a Saturday afternoon in October, Henry and I were chatting, and he said Bex had applied for ‘Our First Home’. I told to him, ‘It will be Janice and you, right? [My husband] Graeme and I wouldn’t handle it!’

“Come Sunday Bex got a call saying they liked her application and could she get time off work.”

Juggling three jobs, time off wasn’t a possibility for Bex’s mum Janice and Bex turned to Theresa – much to her surprise.

“By the Monday night I was driving up to see my parents in the north of Auckland, and Bex calls me up and begs me to do it. I’m a bit of a sucker and will do anything for my kids. It was a big thing for Bex to ask me, and she would have loved to have her Mum there – you have to be pretty trusting to choose your mother-in-law to be!”

Theresa, 56, has put her life in the Bay on hold while the show is being filmed, taking time off from her role at the Acorn Founda-

tion on the distributions committee and from her doctor husband Graeme, with whom she owns and operates the Girven Road Medical Centre. But she says it was worth it to give the kids a fighting chance in the challenging property market.

“It’s a great project show because it shows anyone can do it. You just need to be smart and you can afford to change your environment, the look and feel of a home. I think that is cool for other Kiwis watching it. There are less and less people that get exposed to that can-do attitude that we grew up with.”

Growing up on farm in Kaipara Flats, Northland, where her parents still live, Theresa has since lived with Graham in Tauranga for the last 30 years, arriving by chance when her husband secured a position at a GP practice. Theresa went to work at the hospital and also threw herself into various community projects, including co-founding the Garden and Arts Festival and the Tauranga Arts Festival.

“I have a heart for my community – the better the city is, the better it is for my children. I’ve been here 30 years now and it’s such a growing area. I grew up rural where community was community and you needed others to function, so I have a bit of a passion for that.”

Laura Weaser

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