Mark, MAMIL, and Martinborough

There must be something special about Martinborough because people come to live here and get hooked on the place. Actor Mark Hadlow is proud to declare that this is exactly what happened to him, to the extent that he is bringing his one-man show MAMIL (that’s Middle Aged Man In Lycra) to Martinborough in November. Not only that, all the proceeds from the gala opening night on 6 November will go to the Town Hall Rebuild Fund. Now that really is supporting your community.

Mark and his wife Jane came to live in Martinborough in March 2013, having discovered the “other side of the hill” while Mark was filming The Hobbit. Keen to move away from Christchurch after the earthquakes but unable to find the home they wanted in Wellington, Martinborough provided the perfect recipe for a contented new life.
Mark and Jane built a new home close to the golf course, 197 metres from the first tee in fact, where only a lack of time stands in the way of satisfying Mark’s addiction to golf.

The transition to life in a small town seems to have been smooth and deeply satisfying for both Mark and Jane. They moved here not to retire from the mainstream but to fully involve themselves in a vibrant community and to “experience a New Zealand that is alive and well”. As Mark puts it, “this place doesn’t have to be stuffy and stodgy just because it’s 80km from Wellington”, in fact he and Jane find it “fantastic, with fantastic people”.
Two of those fantastic people are Brian King, who fixed some major problems with the MAMIL set, and Graham Jacobsen, who has transported the set all the way to Auckland and back. With typical fervour Mark says, “that’s the essence of what this town is about”.

Mark is vibrant and charismatic, with big gestures and language that flows like a bubbling stream. At times the words just can’t come fast enough and his eyes flash with excitement. His high energy and enthusiasm for just about everything, including the Martinborough Town Hall, is infectious.

Mark believes that saving the building “and its acoustics” is the key to Martinborough’s future, and he sees it as “the beginning of a blossoming on that side of the Square, of the town centre as a whole”. In his view it will be “the shining light” of Martinborough and he can’t wait to perform there.

Set during the 2007 global financial crisis, MAMIL is the sequel to Mark’s highly successful one man show SNAG. Mark plays several characters in MAMIL, but the central one is Brian Cook, a stressed out, self-loathing property developer who has accumulated a small fortune building leaky homes. When his business and life fall apart he joins a men’s cycling group (hence the lycra) to relieve stress and get healthy, and makes some startling discoveries.

MAMIL has now played very successfully in Auckland and Wellington and Mark says that while at the outset there can be a bit of trepidation in the audience and a “what have we got here” feeling. However, the messages and the humour in the show come through and draw people in. Asked what those messages are, the words pour forth: “they’re pertinent and prominent and very ‘now’, like men’s health, mental health, fitness, cycling, prostate cancer, greed, responsibility, childcare, and they’re dealt with in a great entertaining way, not rude or unwholesome or with lots of swearing”.

He describes the show as “confronting but very real”, and audiences have recognised themselves or moments in their lives in the characters portrayed. Mark bubbles over with excitement as he recalls the audience exploding with laughter – “they were just letting go, it was magic”!

We can look forward to experiencing some of that Mark Hadlow and MAMIL magic next month, with gratitude to the generosity of a man who has taken this community to his heart and who will not only richly entertain us but also bring the goal of a rebuilt Town Hall a big step closer.