Anika Moa on her Maori TV chat show All Talk: 'I will throw everything I have at this'

Teaming up with the talented minds of Paul Casserly and Charlotte Purdy, Anika Moa is to create her very own TV show on Maori Television. Photo / Greg Bowker

One day, two years ago, the Herald entertainment team was sitting around the office shooting the breeze, when a name came up: Anika Moa.

She's cool, we said. She's funny. We should see if she wants to write for us. So off we went to meet the lovely Miss Moa at a cafe in Avondale to tell her about our great idea.

She was cool. And funny. But it turned out, she couldn't really write (her opinion, not ours).

What she really wanted, she told us, was to have her own TV show. And so, we came up with the idea of Face-to-Face with Anika Moa - a NZ Herald web series that was (in our minds, at least) one of the coolest things we've ever produced.

Now, Moa is taking the concept one step further, teaming up with the talented minds of Paul Casserly and Charlotte Purdy to create her very own TV show on Maori Television.

All Talk with Anika Moa will premiere on September 29, featuring a range of guests and performances across half an hour.

Armed with $640,000 of NZoA funding, the programme promises to deliver something new to the New Zealand television landscape.

"This isn't just another show with a white man at a desk," says Purdy. "More of a brown woman on a chair, or beanbag, I'm not even ruling out a uni-cycle at this stage."

Moa admits she's feeling the pressure of expectation.

"I feel sick at the thought of it being a mediocre, boring, middle-of-the-road watch so I will throw everything I have at this. I truly feel it's about time a wahine shone. I also am doing this to meet famous people because I love them."

Speaking of famous people, next week, we set Moa loose on the red carpet at the Chasing Great premiere, where she'll tackle Richie McCaw with the tough questions. Or maybe just get a selfie with him.

* Watch Anika's Chasing Great red carpet video online at nzherald.co.nz from Wednesday.