Peter Hawes, a multifaceted New Zealander, was known for his diverse talents as a playwright, novelist, columnist, actor, presenter, and raconteur. Each of these roles underscored his deep passion for language and his keen wit.
Born in Westport in 1947, Hawes was the son of a miner and rugby league player. At the age of four, his father signed to play in Yorkshire, leading the family to Bradford for four years, where he encountered Peter Sutcliffe, who would later become infamously known as the Yorkshire Ripper.
Hawes earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and History from the University of Canterbury in England in 1969. Following his graduation, he embarked on an overseas experience, which took him from England to Barcelona as an English language teacher. His fascination with Spanish history inspired him to write a novel centered on the Inquisition. One of his students, a publisher, helped facilitate its publication in Spanish as La Hoguera (The Bonfire) in 1974, although it has yet to see an English edition. The book gained notoriety as an anti-Franco parable, achieving bestseller status before being banned.
Upon returning to New Zealand in 1975, Hawes transitioned to television, initially taking on roles as a news researcher and journalist. His unconventional style often felt out of place at state television, leading him to quip to The Listener, “I got my start on television telling lies … They always put my items on at the end of the news.”
Hawes found greater success as a writer for the comedy series A Week of It, beginning with its inaugural episode, and solidified his niche in 1978 with Yours for the Asking. This series was designed to explore viewers’ questions and showcase unusual places and characters, though Hawes noted that the first season averaged one and a half factories per episode. To liven up the content, he employed wordplay, stating in The Listener, “most of the ghastly puns come from factories. All factories are the same, nothing to distinguish them.”
Dissatisfied with the typical presenter role, Hawes deliberately avoided starting episodes with the usual “Hello and welcome to…” greeting. He reflected, “TV is an easy thing to do. A trained parrot can read the news and quite often does. I think you have a moral obligation to go right to the edge. I used to give myself an almost impossible script to do, then try and pull it together.”
In 1981, he tackled more serious themes in Against the Law, where he reconstructed notable court cases. During this time, he was assigned to three different TVNZ departments—children’s, current affairs, and special interest—highlighting his versatility as a researcher, writer, and director, while also suggesting that his employers were unsure how best to utilize his irreverent intellect.
The early 1980s marked a period of increased creativity for Hawes as a playwright, with works including Aunt Daisy, about the long-serving New Zealand radio broadcaster; Ptolemy’s Dip, set in a museum Egyptology room; and Armageddon Revisited, which took place in a Taihape lighthouse.
In 1986, he was unexpectedly chosen to succeed Lockwood Smith and Selwyn Toogood as the host of the children's quiz show The W Three Show, though his time was short-lived. He remarked to The Sunday Star-Times, “It became gloriously nihilistic. You never knew whether you’d been in a bun fight or on a quiz show. God knows where it would have gone.” While he connected well with contestants, his irreverent style and habit of dismissing incorrect answers with “what a load of rubbish” alienated older viewers and TVNZ.
Later that same year, Hawes hosted the documentary Beyond the Bombay Hills, where he aimed to capture intriguing snippets of Auckland life, as he explained in an interview with The Listener.
Hawes also enjoyed a notable experience working as an associate director for Barry Barclay’s long-in-the-making documentary The Neglected Miracle, where his knowledge of Spanish proved beneficial. This project included tense moments with guerillas near the Honduras border, followed by interviews conducted in Europe.
He contributed to the Muppet spin-off Fraggle Rock with New Zealand-set inserts and wrote for the short-lived series Peppermint Twist. Additionally, he made a cameo appearance as a preacher in the 1989 sci-fi series Night of the Red Hunter. In the early 1990s, he penned thoughtful and pun-laden scripts for the arts show 10AM (later Sunday) while also reviving his career as a novelist. His second novel, Tasman’s Lay, published in 1995, aimed to reinterpret the legacy of Aotearoa's Pākehā discoverer Abel Tasman. This was followed by Leapfrog with Unicorns, a satire inspired by research for The Neglected Miracle.
In later years, Hawes shifted his focus primarily to writing. He received an Aotearoa Award for his role as a rebellious hippy in the short film Bird (2011) and portrayed a grandfather in the coming-of-age film Unnatural Selection (2014).
Throughout his career, Hawes reviewed television for The Sunday-Star Times and had a lengthy column in The Manawatu Standard. In his penultimate column, he expressed frustration over the absence of reader complaints during his tenure, lamenting the declining standards of writing and grammar in the media. He metaphorically described his position as feeling “much like the ape that stood on the lowest branch of the tree of life but wouldn't jump, wouldn't follow his fellows down onto the savannah.”
Peter Hawes passed away on 29 October 2018 at his home in Turakina Beach, near Whanganui, at the age of 71.
