Gavin Strawhan (Writer)

Shortland Street: Reflecting a Nation

For more than thirty years, Shortland Street has reflected and challenged the culture and identity of Aotearoa New Zealand. Join famous faces, everyday kiwis, and key figures from every era of Shorty as they share those stories.

Release Date2024-12-19

Charactersd Self

Jackson's Wharf

Jackson's Wharf was a New Zealand television series created by Gavin Strawhan and Rachel Lang. Set in a fictional coastal town, the series told the story of a sibling rivalry between brothers Frank, the town cop, and Ben Jackson, a big-town lawyer. After inheriting the local pub from his recently deceased father, Ben returns to the small town with his family, with his arrival bringing its fair sheer of drama and conflict to the small township.

Release Date1999-06-22

DepartmentCreator

JobCreator

Vote Count1

Outrageous Fortune

After her husband is incarcerated, matriarch Cheryl decides that her career criminal family should go straight and abide by the law.

Release Date2005-07-12

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Episode Count1

Vote Count17

Kaitangata Twitch

Kaitangata Twitch is a children's adventure/fantasy series that aired on Maori TV in New Zealand in 2010. Based on the children's book of the same name, written by renouned New Zealand children's author, Margaret Mahy, it follows the adventures of thirteen year old Meredith, who can hear voices calling to her from a nearby island, Kaitangata, in the bay of her small hometown. A legend of pre-European New Zealand, the frequent rumblings of small earthquakes and the disappearance of a young Pakeha girl, fifty years earlier, all shroud the mystery surrounding the island.

Release Date2010-05-02

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Episode Count4

Vote Count1

Being Eve

Being Eve is a television series from New Zealand, originally shown on TV3 from 2001–2002, and rebroadcast on The N. Being Eve focuses on a teenage girl, Eve Baxter, and her daily problems. Her parents are divorced but live next door to each other. Eve was in love with a boy named Adam. They broke up at the beginning of the second season, and she ends up with another boy named Sam Hooper, whom she had her first kiss with when they were kids.

Release Date2001-08-25

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Episode Count5

Bad Mothers

Sarah’s perfect life as a GP, wife and mother is shattered when she discovers her husband is having an affair. Then her best friend is found murdered and Sarah’s husband, Anton, is arrested. She finds unlikely sisterhood and support in a ragtag group of outsiders.

Release Date2019-02-18

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Episode Count5

Vote Count12

City Life

City Life was a New Zealand soap opera that screened on TVNZ from 1996-1998. It was portrayed the lives and loves of ten singles who lived in an upmarket apartment building in Auckland, New Zealand. The show was touted as New Zealand's answer to Melrose Place. The show starred Claudia Black, Lisa Chappell, Laurie Foell and Oliver Driver and featured a guest appearance by well known New Zealand actor, Kevin Smith. The show had a long development period, and the original treatment for the show had it set in Wellington with the working title 96 Oriental Parade. However, it was decided to produce the show in Auckland instead, and as such, the shows setting was changed along with the name to City Life. The first episode began with a controversial first scene, featuring a drunken Damon who owned the apartment building, in a homosexual kiss with his former lover Ryan on the night before his wedding. Damon was later killed off in the same episode after being hit by a car on the way to his wedding, and he left his apartment building to all of his friends. However, Damon's fianceè vowed to fight for her share of Damon's estate, leading to a storyline that would span the show's first five episodes.

Release Date1996-07-15

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Episode Count2

Vote Count1

Dirty Laundry

The Raffertys are a typical NZ family. But their entire life is based on a very dirty secret...

Release Date2016-09-21

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Episode Count13

Vote Count1

This Is Not My Life

This Is Not My Life is a 2010 New Zealand television mystery thriller which originally aired on Television New Zealand's TV ONE channel on Thursday nights. Set in the 2020s, the show centres on Alec Ross who awakes one morning to find that he doesn't know who or where he is and doesn't recognise his wife or children. The story is set in the fictional town of Waimoana. The series is written by Rachel Lang and Gavin Strawhan and directed by Robert Sarkies and Peter Salmon. Thirteen episodes have been produced. Though the show only lasted one season, it has been announced American network ABC has purchased the series to adapt for an American audience.

Release Date2010-07-29

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Episode Count11

Vote Count6

Burying Brian

Burying Brian is a New Zealand television series produced by Eyeworks Touchdown which premiered on Television New Zealand's TV ONE on 2 July 2008, and ran for 6 episodes. The series is about Jodie and her three female friends. At the beginning of the first episode, Jodie's husband Brian dies during a domestic dispute. Jodie believes that she may go to jail for his murder, but her friends convince her not to report the death, but instead to bury the body and make it appear that he has run off with another woman. Although the series was a ratings success, no further episodes were made after the first season.

Release Date2008-07-02

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Episode Count6

Whale Rider

A contemporary story of love, rejection, and triumph as a young Maori girl fights to fulfill a destiny her grandfather refuses to recognize.

Release Date2003-01-30

DepartmentWriting

JobScript Consultant

Vote Count420

Hyde & Seek

When his best mate and partner is killed in a random attack, Detective Gary Hyde and his new partner Claire McKenzie discover an underbelly of murder and fraud that threatens national security.

Release Date2016-10-03

DepartmentCreator

JobCreator

Vote Count4

Crooked Earth

Will Bastion returns home from the army after an absence of 20 years to bury his father, the former chief of thee Maori tribe, Ngati Kaipuku. The eldest son, he is reluctant to inherit his fathers role, so it is taken more willingly by his younger brother, Kahu. Kahu is the leader of a band of drug dealers and trouble-makers who ride horses through the middle of town, wrecking peoples gardens. Under the guise of refusal of a land settlement, Kahu makes a large marijuana deal with some murdering city folk. Will must choose between loyalty for his brother and his father, Maori tradition, and contemporary financial issues.

Release Date2001-08-23

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Vote Count2

Lawless

An undercover cop who has been undercover for too long has to prepare to make the biggest bust of his career to arrest a drug lord, is suddenly betrayed by a person he least suspects and finds himself on the wrong side of the law. Now framed for a crime he didn't commit, he is determined to uncover his betrayer.

Release Date1999-06-26

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Lawless: Beyond Justice

Two private investigators discover the truth behind a gangland drug deal gone wrong.

Release Date2001-02-22

DepartmentWriting

JobScreenplay

Erebus: Operation Overdue

On 28 November 1979, an Air New Zealand jet with 257 passengers went missing during a sightseeing tour over Antarctica. Within hours 11 ordinary police officers were called to duty to face the formidable Mount Erebus. As the police recovered the victims, an investigation team tried to uncover the mystery of how a jet could fly into a mountain in broad daylight. Did the airline have a secret it wanted to bury? This film tells the story of four New Zealand police officers who went to Antarctica as part of the police operation to recover the victims of the crash. Set in the beautiful yet hostile environment of Antarctica, this is the emotional and compelling true story of an extraordinary police operation.

Release Date2014-07-13

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Vote Count3

Waitangi Day: What Really Happened

This docudrama follows an imaginary news reporter who travels back in time to cover the days leading up to the Treaty of Waitangi's signing on 6 February 1840. Dropping the usual solemnity surrounding Aotearoa's founding document, it uses humour and asides to camera to evoke the chaos and motives behind the treaty. This clip features a confrontation between Hone Heke and representatives of the Crown.

Release Date2011-02-06

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Lawless: Dead Evidence

A killer thought behind bars is killing again. It's up to John Lawless (Kevin Smith) and Jodie Keane (Angelina Dotchin) to stop the murders.

Release Date2001-01-01

DepartmentWriting

JobScreenplay

Vote Count1