Drinking on the job

The cast of Ruben Guthrie at the Bsement Bar in Auckland. Photo / Getty Images

"Were you as f***ed as I were last night? The last thing I remember is seeing two of you walking past me, and then I woke up at my front gate."

This text message wasn't sent between yobs after a 21st-birthday celebration, but rather to Sunrise presenter Oliver Driver from a "very dear friend" the morning after the celeb-strewn debauchery that was the Qantas Film and Television Awards.

The story is fitting, given that Driver's next role is playing a character that Silo theatre director Shane Bosher describes as someone who "never actually claims he's an alcoholic – he instead claims he has a substance-abuse problem related to alcohol".

The play, Ruben Guthrie, tackles the journey of an advertising executive ­— played by Driver — who struggles to dry out in a society and industry dominated by booze.

"It was originally written and produced in Australia," says Bosher. "But the correlation between New Zealand and Australian society is pretty close."

Driver downplays the amount of method in his preparation for the role, but he and the rest of the cast quickly admit that alcohol is an ingrained part of their profession.

From open-bar opening nights to publicity launches, even to securing jobs, the bottle is always in the background.

Chelsea Preston says she was auditioned for the role after she bumped into Oliver Driver and Danielle Cormack during a night out. And Dean O'Gorman recalls a chance 1am meeting at the Viaduct with the director and producers of Kiwi flick Snakeskin that bumped him on to the credits.

Actor Tammy Davis, "Munter" on Outrageous Fortune, was convicted of drink-driving last month.

Toni Potter gave up alcohol a couple of weeks ago as part of an experiment. "It was partly to do with the play, I guess a little bit of method, but I realised that I haven't had more than two weeks off drinking since I was 15. And when you delve into subjects like substance abuse, I thought 'I wonder if I can?'".

Potter, who until recently played party girl Alice Piper on Shortland Street, says she was relieved to find out that the answer to her question was positive.

"I can, and it's actually been quite good." The proliferation of open-bar publicity events in Auckland, fuelled by the growth of the Sunday gossip pages and the need for celebrities to be photographed, can encourage actors to drink free any night of the week, says Driver. He says he gets "about a hundred" invites each week to publicity events where the drinks are on the house.

Preston, who has only recently moved from Wellington, reckons the capital hasn't yet developed such a climate: "There's a whole culture going on up here — the schmooze culture." And awards nights are the worst, says Driver — who makes a classic Freudian slip by confusing the television awards with the wine equivalent.

"The film and television awards are sponsored by [whisky-maker] Jameson, and they're such a long, boring thing — three hours — so half the people are going out and getting pissed as newts during the show. But is this industry particularly alcoholic compared to any other industry?" Fair question.

Alcohol isn't just a social lubricant on the stage. Almost every profession in New Zealand has some form of culturally required drinking. From the unregulated bars at most police stations, to journalists' post-production drinks, white-collar boozing is practically written into job descriptions.

QC Brian Keene, an Auckland barrister who specialises in commercial law, says the business-driven need to share a drink tends to be more predominant early in a lawyer's career – but is particularly useful in building relationships that endure.

He has worked in large city law offices and says most big firms have in-built drinking establishments. "Most of the major law firms have bars, most of the major accounting firms have bars — and they also have quite elaborate entertainment facilities."

While drinking is not a necessity in the legal profession, Keene says teetotal lawyers are a rare breed. "To tell the truth, I don't know of any."

And, in the real-life world of Ruben Guthrie, advertising agency veteran Mike Hutcheson says alcohol has long been considered a creative boon. "The best ideas happen when you relax," he says. "It's not so much the grog that's important — it's the lunch and the relaxation and the conviviality. Just a few glasses of wine and a few guys sitting around a table — it just sparks so many ideas."

Of course, lunches can go on too long. Hutcheson reckons that after 90 minutes, alcohol-fuelled creativity starts to give way to boozed boorishness. Non-drinkers are rare in advertising, says Hutcheson. "They're the exception rather than the rule. Most of the business is really about networking and connectivity — and if you don't drink you miss out."

Ruben Guthrie is on now at Auckland's Herald Theatre, running to October 17