Some of the sheep characters in Flock!, The Musical, by Maura Bailie-Bellew. Photo / Flash Gordon Photography
Five years in the making
It’s been five years in the making but now Flock! The Musical is set for the Turner Centre in mid-June. It’s a totally local production.
Flock! has been written by Maura Bailie-Bellew who has also made most of the costumes and masks. The music is composed by Suzie Hurd who is recording with guest musicians.
Kylie Penn of the Magic Playhouse is directing the show. All three women are collaborating on its final development and all are from Kerikeri.
Bailie-Bellew and her husband have owned a local cafe for 16 years. Hurd teaches music at Kerikeri High School and is part of the local band Dogfather, while Penn has her own business with the Magic Play House and also manages a lighting shop.
It’s a big show with 27 cast members playing 29 characters and, on the surface at least, it appears complex. It does require suspending a normal belief system for the duration of the show but all will be revealed.
It has been described by Cath Toomey, one of the cast members, as “an adult pantomime romping through a research farm with themes of collective inclusion and community, as a comedy with songs”.
When aliens take over a New Zealand research farm to develop glowing sheep as food for an invading army, a hero ram must survive the ups and downs of rural farm life. He must save his hot love interest and band together a ragtag bunch of farm animals to defeat the extraterrestrial threat!
Spotless Pig and Big Cow have been on the farm for years. Impeccably bred, they are the parents of countless offspring all over New Zealand. Cow is a lady of a certain age which means she is uncertain of her future. Pig is still in his prime, but together they try to unravel the farm’s strange goings on.
Flock! The Musical, June 19-21 inclusive, 7pm start each night. iticket.co.nz.
Illustrator extraordinaire
In the hills above Russell lives a man who quietly goes about his business as an illustrator. But dig deeper and there is considerable depth to what he does.
Ian McNee is a cartoon illustrator and children’s book designer who has been drawing pictures all his life.
He was born in Castor Bay, Auckland, in 1958, the year the harbour bridge was opened. The North Shore was then the “back of beyond with metal roads and stink trucks collecting the sewage” but it was a great playground for a young kid.
He went to Campbell’s Bay primary school, Murray’s Bay intermediate and Westlake Boys’ High School.
“In my youthful arrogance I couldn’t see the point of French or mathematics but I got the art prize at Campbell’s Bay primary and Westlake and all I wanted to do was art.”
He started work with an advertising agency but very shortly moved into a junior position at Crown Lynn’s Design Studio and loved it. One of his jobs was to take the experiments to the kiln for firing overnight and he would rush the next morning to see how they turned out, or not.
He took a position as a resource officer at the Pacific Islander’s Educational Resource Centre, PIERC, which was run by Pasifika people for Pacific Islanders.
The Government was still making dawn raids on Pacific Island overstayers at that time, and there were cross-cultural misunderstandings that PIERC was set up to address. He produced illustrated books as resource material for teachers.
“I went freelance as an illustrator in the late ‘80s, drawing children’s books and illustrating for various magazine publishers.
“One of the most enjoyable jobs was doing the poster for Les Mills fitness gyms. The brief was to attract everyday people to their gyms but they noticed my characters weren’t the fitness bunnies with perfect bodies they were used to.
“We argued about that but I eventually won and the poster lasted quite a long time before I set off for London, intending to stay for a year.”
He ended up staying for 15 years as a children’s book designer and illustrator for Usborne Publishing. He has designed for the company for the past 34 years and says every artist needs a benefactor and Usborne has certainly been his.
In the mid-to-late nineties he made editorial illustrations in Britain for the Weekend Guardian for various contributors such as Michael Palin, Sebastian Faulks and Philip Norman among other prominent British citizens. He did an illustration of Elvis Presley who would have turned 60 years old and it went viral. Every illustration he did was credited with his name.
He has made promotional posters for various London theatres, has illustrated a map-like pamphlet for dispensing in train and Tube stations, he makes “little cartoons” for friends and family. He made little Rose a colouring book because her mother had run out of ideas to keep her occupied.
He has worked remotely for the past 15 years dividing his time between New Zealand and Britain.
“It got so that my only home was 35,000ft up in the air flying from one country to the other. My last trip to London was in February 2020. I was there a week before the country locked down and I was trapped for eight months before I could return.”
It’s his fifth year of living in Russell-Kororāreka. His work can be found on cards and prints and books locally, nationally, internationally and yet he still prefers to work under the radar, to have the quiet life.
Kerikeri writer called to a sun-scorched land
Kerikeri author, Mary-Pat Ross, is about to launch her first book entitled Called to a Sun-Scorched Land, Mission to Mozambique that details her time in that East African country.
“I started in 2018 but did not get past one or two pages because I wasn’t sure at that time which story to tell.
“When I joined the FlockNZ Christian Writers group in 2021 that’s when I really started writing the rough draft and it became clear to me that it would be a memoir of a specific time frame, 2013-2016.”
At age 60 she left behind everything familiar to follow a calling she had carried in her heart for decades, which was to serve children in Africa.
Her journey to Mozambique was one of faith, resilience, and unexpected challenges. From navigating life in a remote community to braving the chaotic streets on a motorbike, each day tested her courage and deepened her trust in God.
Yet, in the midst of struggles, she found joy through the children she taught, the friendships she built and the unwavering support of those who believed in her mission.
“As an ECE trained New Zealand teacher, to be able to cross-culturally train locals to give their children an enriching experience to assist them into primary school was so amazing.
“The friendships made there, with other colleagues from around the world as well as the Mozambican children and families are things I will treasure for the rest of my life.”
The work is self-published and she acknowledges the help she received from the editor, Susanna Schollum, the proof-readers Althea Barr and Robyn Neale. She is also grateful to the Kerikeri Public Library for “keeping spaces for people with laptops doing the mahi and for the free WiFi provided”.
The book launch was on Tuesday at Redwoods Cafe. It will also be available on Amazon and through IngramSpark, Wheelers, and Fishpond.
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