Celebrating our ‘mad, gifted geniuses’
‘Bistro?”
When the mobile beeps and that signal appears, I know where I am headed: the place where Hamish Keith holds court. His seat, in Auckland’s Ponsonby Road Bistro, is reserved with a brass plaque labelled “Curmudgeon’s Corner”.
Right now, Hamish isn’t particularly curmudgeonly. As an artist, art historian, broadcaster, scriptwriter (with 25 television dramas to his name), graphic designer, arts administrator and commentator, he has had an immense influence on this country.
He celebrated his 85th birthday with a party just two days before the latest Covid lockdown. There was a large turnout. Nobody seems to have told my irrepressible cousin he is no longer 35. Or, if they did, he didn’t listen. I suspect his wife, costume designer Ngila Dickson, has given up trying to explain this.
But we can’t help gazing out the bistro window and noting how much New Zealand has changed since Hamish first arrived in Auckland, in 1958.
Back then, his generation of artists were part of something pretty big. They were fed up with what they saw as a shy, retiring society that didn’t believe in itself. And largely thanks to them, you don’t hear
