Miriam Margolyes in New Zealand has its world premiere on Sunday 12th January with the second episode to follow on television the following week, but both episodes will be available on iView immediately.
The show follows on the actors’ previous adventures around Australia and Scotland, and it’s a great way to learn a lot about New Zealand’s culture and history.
Ahead of filming a new movie in New Zealand, a country she’s never previously worked in, Margolyes heads off on a road trip across the north and south islands.
The upcoming film Holy Days will see Margolyes playing one of three elderly oddball nuns who join a broken-hearted boy on a journey to New Zealand’s South Island. The debut feature from writer-director Nat Bolt also stars Jacki Weaver and Judy Davis.
Margolyes dives into life in New Zealand by heading to a rugby game, a sport she’s never felt much love for. But she discovers that unlike her birth country of England where rugby is a game largely played by the upper-class, in New Zealand it’s almost universally loved.
Miriam’s road-trip adventure then takes her to the Whanganui River, where in a world first, the local Māori tribe – or ‘iwi’ – have succeeded in winning legal acknowledgement of the river’s ‘personhood’, in recognition of their spiritual and physical interdependence.
In preparation for her film role, 83-year-old Miriam also visits a Catholic monastery, before heading to Hobbiton, and confronting her longstanding antipathy of grown-ups living in a ‘fantasy world’.
Playing nuns is something that’s become something of a habit (pun intended) for Margolyes. She recently been a guest on Call the Midwife, and the upcoming film will be her third time as an on-screen nun. At the monastery Margolyes gets to ask nuns a wide range of questions about their life.
She also has to admit as she heads off on a tour of Hobbiton that she’s never watched any of The Lord of the Rings film or its prequel series The Hobbit. Although she’s spent most of her life on film sets, Margolyes is quite impressed with the detail of the former film sets.
Chatting to director Peter Jackson, Margolyes shares that as a youngster she met author J.R.R. Tolkien, because his daughter was a school classmate.
The episode also sees Margolyes head to Auckland to learn more about the Māori language, and the ceremonial Māori dances. Plus, she finds about how migrants are making New Zealand their new home, including people who were rejected from settling in Australia.
If you enjoyed the previous journey’s Margolyes has been on, you’ll adore this visit to New Zealand that explores a wide range of topics and introduces many different people.
Tune in or log on to see the series from Sunday 12th July 2025.
