Dave Armstrong
Phone: 04 463 6854
Fax: 04 463 6865
Email: modernletters@vuw.ac.nz
Dave convenes the CREW 351 Masterclass: Television Scriptwriting | He Tuhinga mō te Pouaka Whakaata.
About
Dave Armstrong is an experienced and award-winning television writer. His television credits include the sketch comedies Public Eye, Skitz, Away Laughing, Facelift and Jandals Away. Dave co-created (with Danny Mulheron) and co-wrote two series of the acclaimed comedy Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby, which screened on TV One in New Zealand and on Australia's ABC network. Dave's other comedy credits include Spin Doctors, for which he won an AFTA award for Best Comedy Script, Bro'town (script editor), Diplomatic Immunity, B and B and The Semisis.
His television drama credits include Cover Story, the TV movie Spies and Lies and Billy (co-written with Briar Grace-Smith), a biopic about Billy T James which was screened in 2012. Dave co-wrote, with director Gaylene Preston, Hope and Wire, a six-hour drama series about the Christchurch Earthquake. In 2020 Dave wrote Friend of the Friendless, a docudrama about lawyer Greg King who defended Ewen Macdonald in the Scott Guy murder case.
Dave has been a storyliner and script writer for Shortland Street, has written scripts for the consumer rights programme Target and Q – a science programme for children, and has been a judge for the Qantas Television awards.
He has written a number of stage plays including Niu Sila (co-written with Oscar Kightley) The Tutor, Magnolia Street, Central, Kia ora Khalid, The Motor Camp, King and Country, Kings of the Gym, Rita and Douglas, Central, where we once belonged (with Sia Figiel), Le Sud, Anzac Eve and the Surprise Party. Dave has won the Chapman Tripp Theatre Award for Best New New Zealand Play three times. In 2015 his play Central won the SWANZ/Writer's Guild award for best play.
Dave recently co-wrote a children's movie, Kiwi Christmas, and he is a columnist for the Dominion-Post newspaper and won best opinion writer (humour and satire) in the 2018 Voyager Media Awards. He has also written a book, True Colours, about the 1996 New Zealand General Election.
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Course information
Read more about CREW 351 Masterclass, including timetable and fee information and downloadable course flier.