Imagine if Deadwood, with all its brutality, corruption and colourful characters, was regularly interrupted by WWE Raw Monday night highlights and you’re in the ballpark with Kiwi comedy series Colonial Combat.
Created by actor-turned-filmmaker Julian Arahanga (The Matrix, Once Were Warriors) and set in the coastal town of Kauri Bay circa 1836, the cheerfully anachronistic series takes a pivotal period in New Zealand/Aotearoa history and adds in that magical ingredient: a ton of high-flying wrestling action. In the specific, Colonial Combat principally follows two characters: wrestling promoter Handsome Harold Barker (Mark Hadlow, The Hobbit) and young Maori entrepreneur Tereti (Erroll Anderson).
Hailing from England, the fast-talking Harold arrives in Kauri Bay with a tent, a ring (of the wrestling variety) and an aim to establish a very profitable wrestling franchise. He quickly teams up with local Maori leader Kingi (Lawrence Wharerau, The Piano) to ensure a steady supply of tough nuts willing to beat each other up for the enjoyment of the crowd.
Mark Hadlow as Handsome Harold in ‘Colonial Combat’. Source: SBS
Tereti, for his part, also hails from England – although he has Maori heritage, he is more or less culturally English but wants to reconnect with his ancestral people. He also wants to publish a newspaper and establishes a printing press as part of that plan, producing Bibles in English and Maori for the local missionary. To Harold, a printer with an eye for profit is just the thing to help promote his nascent sideshow.
With Tereti and Kingi we have two Maori characters who seem happy to work with, if not for, the white settlers of New Zealand/Aotearoa. Their opposite number is Kingi’s warlike brother Tuwhare (Jarod Rawiri, ), recently returned from waging guerrilla war on the colonial forces and keen as mustard to get back to it – but he also wants a piece of the action. Further complicating things is Tereti’s lovelorn yearning for Hinepu (Kahumako Rameka), Kingi’s beautiful daughter, a forbidden romance that could upset the entire applecart.
There’s a lot going on in the ring and outside it in ‘Colonial Combat’. Source: NITV
While Colonial Combat delights in sending up the mores and tropes of historical drama, and its very conceit flies in the face of historical accuracy, it’s nonetheless set at a crucial period in New Zealand/Aotearoa’s past: just a handful of years before the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi between the British Crown and the Maori chieftains of the North Island, one of the central events in modern New Zealand’s history. It was a fraught time, with plenty of bloodshed on both sides (and let’s not forget French colonisation efforts, which are directly referenced in Colonial Combat).
The New Zealand Wars of the 19th century have previously been the focus of heavy dramas like Geoff Murphy’s Utu (1983) and Vincent Ward’s River Queen (2005). Here, the clash of cultures is rendered as a comedy, with the fighting mostly (but only mostly) relegated to the inside of the ring, but Arahanga is nonetheless still dealing with the big questions that haunt New Zealand/Aotearoa and other colonial countries today: resistance or appeasement? Cooperation or conflict? Integration or assimilation? Peace or war?
Each character represents a different angle, whether they’re Wharerau’s cunning but greedy tribal leader, Rawiri’s fierce and unbowed rebel fighter or Hadlow’s European on the make. At the centre of it all is Anderson’s Tereti – descended from one people, educated by another and unsure of his place with either. For all that Colonial Combat is a knockabout comedy, it’s also a thoughtful meditation on New Zealand/Aotearoa’s past and present.
Colonial Combat premieres in Australia on NITV, at 6.00pm, Sunday 12 December.
