Bond, James Bond? Not quite, but this Kiwi comedy is a delightfully dry spin on spy thrillers
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New Zealand Spy ★ ★ ★ ★
Lovers of endearingly mild-mannered New Zealanders being polite, careful and deadpan in risky, high-stakes circumstances, rejoice. New Zealand Spy is a six-part comedy series from New Zealand comedian, writer and musician Paul Williams (Taskmaster NZ), whose love of James Bond and Alfred Hitchcock films has engendered a deeply dry-witted retake on classic spy films.
Paul Williams (left), Rose Matafeo and Joe Thomas play rookie agents in New Zealand Spy.
Kicking off with the panache and adventure of any Bond movie, we meet Williams’ spy protagonist, Michael Brown (spy name: Michael Riviera), piste skiing in a pearly white snowsuit down a vast Queenstown slope chased by an Australian spy agency guard.
Brown is eventually trapped and his identity requested at gunpoint. Does he answer “Riviera, Michael Riviera”? No. What follows is an awkward silence as he tries to remember his undercover alias. A squabble ensues, the guard is perplexed and infuriated but we flash back to how Riviera became a spy a few weeks previously.
A brown-suited Bret McKenzie (Flight of the Conchords) appears with “Boss” on his desk. As head of New Zealand’s Secret Service he reveals the result of Brown’s application to be a spy.
Boss: “I’ve got good news, Michael. There are five spots, and only three applicants. So … you’re in.”
Brown: “Yes! Thank you, sir, you won’t regret this.”
Boss: “Yeah, I know. There’s only three applicants, so I can’t regret it. It’s out of my hands.”
Training begins with two other spy recruits – no-nonsense, highly competent Sue Nightingale (Rose Matafeo) and impatient bully Michael Anderson (Joe Thomas, The Inbetweeners) – before beginning the first assignment, which is uncovering an Australian Secret Intelligence Service’s assassination plot against India’s foreign minister on New Zealand soil.
Bret McKenzie as “Boss”, who heads New Zealand’s Secret Service, and Matafeo as recruit Sue Nightingale.
New Zealand Spy (a perfect tell-all title) is led by Williams’ performance. Sharp-suited and ever-earnest, he can run with the cheetah-like energy of Daniel Craig in a jam, but can’t remember his cover name, is overwhelmed by sexual tension and keeps ending up in hospital. He does evade baddies and crack clues but is charmingly unhurried and almost dim-witted.
“Tastes like a angel,” he says after the seductive Misty Atwood (Claudia O’Doherty, Our Flag Means Death) kisses him.
Atwood: “An angel.”
Brown: “Who is that?”
Misty: “No, an angel.”
Brown: “Yeah, I still don’t know who that is.”
The cinematography is magnificent, with beautifully framed interiors and locations (scenes in Marlborough, Queenstown, Bay of Islands are titled onscreen with majestic fanfare). It’s packed with comic stars, from Matafeo and McKenzie to Sam Campbell (Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee), Andy Lee (The Hundred with Andy Lee) and Tim Key (The Paper), all kitted-up in fab suits, rumpled trench coats and wide-collared ’70s dresses at glamorous parties, secret train assignations, spy hangouts and after-dark meetings beneath enormous oak trees.
It’s a field day for classic film devotees detecting scene tributes. Brown tries to escape his hospital room by climbing out the window and, later, is sprayed with chemicals from an overhead plane as he runs through a vineyard, both well-executed nods to Cary Grant in North By Northwest.
New Zealand Spy has a very 1970s aesthetic.
One of my favourite themes is Matafeo’s irrepressible Nightingale, the only female spy, increasingly infuriated at her relegation to lesser jobs (waiting in the car, cooking in a kitchen, being a waiter) while the men get the exciting work. Give her the lead!
It’s worth noting that New Zealand Spy is a slow burn. Early on, I wondered if the pace lagged but, after four episodes and the characters’ evolution, I was hooked.
New Zealand Spy premieres at 9pm on Wednesday, July 22, on the ABC and ABC iview.
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