Hey, hey Andy Shaw, tell me, were you thinking about job security when you made that hilarious, but hare-brained speech at the Diplomatic Immunity launch party on Tuesday night? Even the show's creator, James Griffin, who spoke after you predicted the headline would be: "New show costs TV exec his
job". Not that you seemed to care when we chatted about it afterwards.
Fair call. But as general manager of commissioning, production and acquisitions at TVNZ, don't you think you should be a little more careful when you rat out your detractors? You called the Dominion Post "just a waste of good s*** paper", and you referred in a particularly derogatory manner to reviewer Jane Bowron that I dare not put into print.
You added self-satisfactorily: "I don't give a s*** about shares or making money or columnists. I just care about comedy... If you don't laugh at this [show] you are f***ing dead. I will find you and kill you ... [This speech] might cost me my job, but hell, I have options."
That's fighting talk, Andy, for a man who works for a company needing to carve a whopping $25 million from the books. I'm thinking you may say you don't care about columnists or reviewers, but the way you attacked Bowron clearly shows you do.
What, pray tell, did you take offence to exactly? The way she described your show Go Girls as being, "so awful it makes Burying Brian look good"? Or when she wrote: "Not since the awful Melody Rules has a locally made comedy been so painfully embarrassing to watch"?
For what it's worth, I prefer the Herald's Frances Grant's description of Girls as "good for a laugh provided by a set of appealing Shore characters".
But, heck, I'm not working for a company with an enforced multimillion-dollar cull in the works. Good luck.
Click here for photos of the launch party for new show Diplomatic Immunity.
Rachel Glucina
Pictured above: Top photo: Andy Shaw in fighting form at the Diplomatic Immunity launch. Photo / Herald on Sunday
