New Zealand Spy review: live and let laugh with this starry espionage spoof

Casting Tony Armstrong as a suave secret agent is one of those strokes of genius that was likely always bound to happen – a matter of when, not if.

An Australian has already portrayed Bond, thanks to one-007-film-wonder George Lazenby. Jacob Elordi is reportedly in the running to next sip the British icon’s martinis. But in New Zealand Spy, Armstrong bests them both – when it comes to an Aussie playing an Australian espionage operative in an international production, at least.

Aotearoa’s very funny, quickly bingeable new spoof makes that dream come true, and comedy dreams with it, even in the jam-packed genre of spy satires.

The 70s-set NZ TV series also features Flight of the Conchords’ Bret McKenzie and Starstruck’s Rose Matafeo. It’s stacked with canny casting, with Australians as the villains, and plenty of spot-on parodies as well as humorous uses of repetition. (Think The Simpsons’ extended Sideshow Bob rake scene from its Cape Feare episode, one of the animated hit’s all-time great moments.) It’s a constant delight to watch.

Swiftly hitting the target

New Zealand Spy’s nods to espionage tropes start off-screen, with the genre’s love of lone operatives backed by killer teams layered into its very existence. Taskmaster NZ’s Paul Williams calls the shots as the show’s creator, and also dons the tux in front of the camera. Alongside McKenzie and Matafeo, The Inbetweeners’ Joe Thomas is among his main co-stars.

Williams’ lifelong love of Bond has already been established in his stand-up. Courtesy of fellow New Zealand series Kid Sister, plus the small-screen hits that McKenzie, Matafeo and Thomas are each best-known for, the show’s key quartet is well-versed in the rhythms and workings of episodic television comedy.

Affection for the spy genre shines right from the opening nudge towards The Spy Who Loved Me, and echoes from its suitably playfully Bond-leaning score. Experience gleams in the ease in which the series builds its silly-but-still-smart world, the frequency of its laugh-out-loud gags and the ambition of unfurling a season-long NZ-versus-Australia storyline.

By the time that the show is borrowing from North by Northwest not once but twice, both hilariously, it has settled into its purposefully, entertainingly wry groove perfectly.

From NZ with love

Williams plays Brown, Michael Brown – or Michael Riviera, as he decides would make a cooler-sounding spy moniker mid-interview with McKenzie’s espionage boss (who is just named Boss).

The fact that New Zealand Spy’s protagonist mightn’t actually be the most competent agent is also a spy-satire staple, beloved by Get Smart, Austin Powers, Johnny English, MacGruber and the like. But part of the joy of this series is discovering how Williams and company successfully give that stock-standard scenario the same inventive and adoring spin as they do 007 flicks, Hitchcock greats and the show’s other inspirations.

When there are only three applicants for five jobs and training takes just two weeks, cracking into NZ intelligence is easy. Matafeo’s Sue Nightingale and Thomas’ Michael Anderson also benefit; however, the former is a multi-lingual sharpshooter and the latter has been primed for the gig since birth, with his dad a big name in the business.

Soon New Zealand Spy’s trio of new recruits is hopping around Aotearoa – from Christchurch and Marlborough to Queenstown, Auckland and the Bay of Islands, as showcased by the series’ gorgeous cinematography – to discover why the head of the Australian Intelligence Service (Andy Lee) has crossed the ditch.

Why he’s palling around with New Zealand’s third-richest man and hatching an assassination plot against the Indian Foreign Minister equally needs answering, including as Brown, Nightingale and Anderson go undercover at the Unity Games, a Commonwealth Games substitute.

Comedic mission: possible

Spanning furtive alliances and flirty trysts, plus impersonated identities and big betrayals, the plot specifics are a mechanism to help New Zealand Spy do what spoofs do best, aka riff and wink while unleashing a bumbling agent of chaos.

Spy tales can stretch logic and this one is no different, gleefully and knowingly so. Crucially, Williams still avoids a trap that can undercut parodies – because whether it is trading in slapstick, sight gags, wordplay or the absurd, his series never feels like a mere jumble of jokes stitched together by whatever story beats do the trick.

Although no spoof can sparkle without committed players, New Zealand Spy swerves another common pitfall: when actors make too laboured an effort to get the audience to share in their hammed-up fun. Here, with an ensemble that extends to Australian comedians Claudia O’Doherty and Sam Campbell, British The Paper star Tim Key, NZ talents Abby Howells and Jackie van Beek, and more, the vibe is thoroughly committed but understated and deadpan, in classic New Zealand comedy style.

For a format that relies upon skewing as broad (and skewering as broadly) as possible, parodies are always a matter of personal taste. As many people despise the Naked Gun and Scary Movie franchises as love them, for instance. With New Zealand Spy, it’s the personal that makes the series shine – from Williams’ evident fondness for all things espionage and his earnest lead performance, to the chemistry between the having-a-ball cast.

Despite the many secret-agent riffs that have given this realm a comedic shake and stir before, New Zealand Spy perhaps best recalls two other standout TV parodies from the last few decades, each with other genres in their sights. Like 2004 hospital/horror spoof Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and the 2011-2013 action/police procedural take-off NTSF:SD:SUV::, both in their unique ways, it finds the ideal mix of the ridiculous and the sublime. Six episodes is not enough.

New Zealand Spy airs Wednesdays on ABC TV, with all episodes now available on ABC iview.

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