Calum Henderson 
In the 1970s, a young New Zealand athlete introduced the world to a radical new long jump technique. But unlike high jumper Dick Fosbury and the Fosbury Flop, the Delamere Flip never got off the ground. Tuariki Delamere is upside down. Suspended in mid-air above the sandpit at the LA Coliseum, his knees are tucked … Read more
Between 2009 and 2014, New Zealand’s top-rating breakfast radio host published a serialised ode to life’s simple pleasures on Twitter. We pay tribute to ‘Life is Perfect’, an unheralded literary achievement. On a warm Saturday evening in February 2013, New Zealand broadcaster Mike Hosking lifted the lid of his Weber barbecue. The meat he was … Read more
From 2005’s Wayne Anderson: Singer of Songs to new Tom Sainsbury comedy Sextortion, via a dead peacock, a trio of escaped circus lions and a sentimental wrist wallet: Calum Henderson pays tribute to the unique oeuvre of television creator Orlando Stewart. Orlando Stewart has never made a hit TV show. What he has done, dating … Read more
As South Africa prepares to unleash a confusing new three-team version of cricket on the world, it’s time to settle once and for all: which cricket format is the best? Cricket is a sport steeped in tradition. One of the proudest cricketing traditions calls for purists to express outrage any time a new format of … Read more
Just like the rest of us, it turns out our elected representatives have a lot of weird stuff in their homes and offices. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning for the past four weeks, members of the parliamentary Epidemic Response Committee and invited guests have met online for a series of Zoom meetings. Like many … Read more
Calum Henderson reckons New Zealand has the most celebrity chefs per capita. Here, he tries to find the funniest. There are few things I love more in this life than taking a celebrity chef’s name in vain and using it to roast the living hell out of my nearest and dearest. It goes like this: … Read more
After the Black Caps’ victory over Sri Lanka in their first match of the 2019 Cricket World Cup, Calum Henderson has made an important update to his ranking of every New Zealand ODI shirt. Has any other team in world sport worn such a wide and varied range of colours as the TelstraClear New Zealand … Read more
A little bit of Taika, a little bit Jackson, a little bit Footrot Flats. Calum Henderson celebrates the best New Zealand-made films available to watch on Lightbox right now. Growing up, the options sometimes felt a bit limited when it came to New Zealand movies. Want a whimsical romcom? Your best bet was probably the first half of Heavenly Creatures. … Read more
New Zealand music’s most famous musical comedy duo return to the stage in Flight of the Conchords: Live in London. Calum Henderson reviews. New Zealand television networks have always got a lot of shit for not giving Flight of the Conchords their own series. Fair enough, in hindsight this does seem like a pretty bad call. … Read more
Nothing that happens in Friday’s big celebrity cricket game will ever be as good as Paul Vautin’s catch in the 1993 Allan Border testimonial, argues Calum Henderson. This Friday afternoon at Hagley Park in Christchurch, a team of famous cricketers are playing a team of famous rugby players in a game of celebrity T20 that … Read more
Calum Henderson’s seven step guide to adding the Beautiful Game to your summer. This story originally ran in Barker’s 1972 magazine. The best part of any match at Kiwitea Street in Sandringham, Auckland, is the five minutes after the referee blows the final whistle, before the volunteers come down from the clubrooms and start taking down … Read more
Someone had to do it. First published 13 January 2018. In 2015, around the time of the World Cup, the New Zealand Cricket Museum started selling this stunningly attractive poster. Designed by Into the White Press, it details the evolution of the New Zealand one day international cricket uniform, from its beige beginnings to years … Read more
Follow Calum Henderson’s advice on how to occupy the annual family Christmas chasm between lunch and dinner with these guaranteed crowd-pleasers on Freeview. Ah, the classic Kiwi Christmas: pohutukawa trees in bloom, the abandoned remnants of a backyard cricket game strewn across the lawn, a fresh pavlova in the fridge. The whole family together under one … Read more
A huge-if-true newspaper report this week has raised the possibility that sandwich bread could soon be a thing of the past. Calum Henderson investigates. It’s the New Zealand food story of the year, and it broke last Thursday on page 5 of Dunedin community newspaper The Star. Under the extremely emotive-to-southerners headline “Thin ‘cheese roll’ … Read more
Who can bake good, and who will be baking bad? Our first look at the #GKBO contestants offers some valuable clues. Calum Hendersons ranks them. Good news everybody: life is finally about to get better. Go outside and you can feel it in the air, an unfamiliar sense of hope. Everything is going to be … Read more
The hugely popular British show about people watching telly is finally getting a New Zealand version. And Calum Henderson, for one, can’t wait. Good news: TV’s not dead. There are still people out there who regularly sit down, in their living rooms, and just… watch it, sometimes for hours at a time. Now, some of … Read more
It might be called Coast New Zealand but, after three seasons, it should really be called Neil Oliver New Zealand, writes Calum Henderson. After three seasons of Coast New Zealand, most reasonable TV watchers will surely agree: Neil is the best Oliver. He’s funnier and smarter than John without even trying, and even though he … Read more
Look at him. Just look at him. This is amazing. Former New Zealand cricket player Chris Zinzan Harris is going to be on Dancing With the Stars. To me, an avowed fan of both the legendary all-rounder and the harmlessly stupid celebrity dancing show, this could just about be the greatest thing that has ever … Read more
Bringing back an awesome show from 20 or 30 years ago may seem like the answer to all our modern TV problems, but is it really? Today, Calum Henderson examines the case for bringing back a true crime masterclass. Mike Bungay QC was a New Zealand lawyer so famous they gave him his own TV … Read more
An exclusive walking tour reveals the true extent of a city’s obsession with visiting pop star Ed Sheeran. Contrary to what an out-of-towner might believe, Ed Sheeran is not the first international pop superstar to ever play a show in Dunedin. In 2004, Busta Rhymes came and played at the Town Hall. In 2006, seven … Read more
Calum Henderson dives deep into the New Zealand music archives to discover our greatest one-hit wonders – and the not-quite-as-successful songs by the same artists. What exactly is a one hit wonder? Everybody knows the term, but it seems none of us can quite agree on how to define it. In the strictest sense, the … Read more
It may not be as flash as its counterparts, but TVNZ 2’s latest obstacle course show more than makes up for it in pure heart. The giant obstacle course could be about to topple the commercial-grade kitchen as television’s main competitive arena in this part of the world. Australian Spartan (Sunday nights, TVNZ 2) is … Read more
What is the greatest New Zealand TV theme song ever written? Our search continues with a long forgotten Dave Dobbyn masterpiece from 1989. Previously in our search for New Zealand’s greatest TV theme song: Country Calendar Any major boomer will tell you: 1980s New Zealand was a different world. A world where you could smoke … Read more
Calum Henderson watches The Wall, the new extravagant quiz show that might just outrun The Chase. This is the summer of The Chase. An episode in the morning, another in the afternoon, a Celebrity Chase most evenings – for the last couple of months it has been possible to plan your day around appointments with … Read more
David Seymour and Gilda Kirkpatrick are confirmed. Now the Spinoff’s Dancing With the Stars pundit attempts to predict the remainder of this year’s celebrity line-up. Watching Australian celebrities debase themselves for cash every night on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! it’s tempting to wish for a New Zealand version. Which Kiwi celebs … Read more
Throw the man a dolphin and buy his $1.9m Point Chevalier house. When we think of ‘public service journalism’ we usually think of holding the government to account and filing lots of OIAs. But public service comes in many forms, and one of the greatest public service television programmes of the 21st century is the … Read more
Bringing back an awesome show from 20 or 30 years ago may seem like the answer to all our modern TV problems, but is it really? We begin by exploring the case for bringing back Heroes with Philip Alpers. The 1990s was a boom decade for New Zealand actors specialising in dramatic reenactments of real … Read more
With his death going viral, Nigel the Mana Island gannet joins a proud tradition of New Zealand celebrity animals. Calum Henderson pays tribute to the creatures we’ve loved and lost. This article was first published in February 2018. A dead gannet is the latest New Zealand animal to attain celebrity status. Nigel, of Mana Island, … Read more
Calum Henderson looks back at the best of Jeremy Wells and makes some predictions for what he will bring to the Seven Sharp desk. When Jeremy Wells takes his seat next to Hilary Barry at the Seven Sharp desk tomorrow, it will mean different things to different people. Many of Seven Sharp’s regular audience, for … Read more