Covid-19 nearly put the ky-bosh on Te Anau playwright Brian Johnston’s first children’s story, but the world has a way of turning things round and now he has a new play to share with the public on April 17-18.

Johnston began writing a children’s story, The Way of the World, after he “semi-retired” to Te Anau in 2017 and before the Covid-19 pandemic arrived to disrupt society.

“It’s a bit like the Wind in the Willows, using British animals, foxes and moles . . . Then Covid hit and that almost put the ky-bosh on it. So, I decided to convert it into a play.

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“The synopsis is that all is well until Sly Stoat and his gang of thugs arrive and create havoc and how the community comes together to defend his crusade,” Johnston said.

Characters such as Freya Fantail, Hector Hedgehog, Ruffles Rabbit, Suzie Silvereye and Ruby Rat form an army to resist Sly Stoat and his side kicks, Walter Weasel and Fred Ferrett, Johnston said. 

The play’s theme, be kind and strong, resonated with the messaging around surviving Covid-19, although the story was written before the pandemic, he said.

There were urban themes and the characters were “not all cute little animals”, he said.

“We had two public readings [last year] with children at the DOC auditorium and also at the Te Anau Club, and then I decided to get some funding to put it on as a full production,” he said.

With the support of the Southland District Council’s Creative Community Fund, the Grace Place (Presbyterian Church), Rotary Club and Community Trust South, he raised about $11,000 for the production.

Reading scenes: PHOTO: Supplied

An enthusiastic group of 22 people aged from 8 to 18 will be taking part in the show in a couple of weeks’ time.

Johnston said he scouted the ranks of the local Kung Fu, tennis, swimming and music groups for artistic talent and was thrilled so many wanted to get involved, given he’d found Te Anau “quite a sporty town”.

Also working on the production are Sasha Morgan, who has helped create 27 papier mache masks for the various characters, and seamstress and costume designer, Jane Gilder. The set has been built by Trevor, from the Te Anau gym.

It is not the first time the former professional theatre performer and mental health worker has written a play.

Play workshop: PHOTO: Supplied

When he was living in Dunedin and working at Otago University as a counsellor, he wrote two adult-themed plays that were chosen for professional public readings at the Fortune Theatre, one about an old woman in a rest home called “The Good Old Bad Old Days” and the other about a gay couple set during the 1980s HIV/AIDs pandemic in London.

Originally from Scotland, Johnston was 19 before he joined his local repertory theatre group in East Kilbride, on the outskirts of Glasgow.

After a year of amateur drama, he felt compelled to embark on a professional career, studying theatre at Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh and then going on to the London School of Contemporary Dance, which he described as his own “Billy Elliot story”.

From there, he went to Arts Education School to study musical theatre, before taking roles in various productions including Bernstein and Sondheim’s West Side Story, and Rupert Holmes’ The Mystery of Edmund Drood, based on an unfinished Charles Dickens novel.

Johnston spend five years tutoring dance and drama at Her Majesty’s Prison at Holloway, a women’s remand prison, which has since closed.

It was a successful experience – he built up the prison education service’s biggest drama education programme in the mid-1980s before - and from there he decided to train as a mental health practitioner.

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In 2006, he decided it was time to do his first “OE”, so made a short trip to New Zealand and loved it.

“It reminded me of Scotland, in many ways, the weather, what have you,” he said.

When the university he was working at in Glasgow decided to restructure, Johnston took voluntary redundancy, applied for university jobs in New Zealand and scored one at Otago University in 2007.

“I thought I would come for a year and see what is was like and here we are, 13 years later!”

Way of the World will be performed at the Fiordland Community Events Centre at Te Anau at 7.30pm on Saturday April 17, and 2pm and 7.30pm on Sunday April 18.

Booking and ticket information can be found HERE.

Early bird discounts are available until April 10.