Charmian Smith

Playschool was a major production for the Garrison Hall studio and production staff.

The fortress-like exterior of Garrison Hall in Lower Dowling St, Dunedin, belies its long history as a major entertainment venue, including, for the best part of the past 50 years, as a home for television production.

Although she has had more than 20 books published in New Zealand, Tania Roxborogh is excited about the prospect of making it on to the international market at last.

Nanotechnology is predicted to change our lives, environment and our societies as much as the computer has done. Charmian Smith looks at some of the promises and risks in what is happening down at the incredibly small level of matter.

Stefen Harris loves telling stories, and when not a policeman on the beat in Christchurch, he writes novels and film scripts and makes films.

On Wednesday July 15, New Zealand's largest earthquake since 1931 hit Fiordland. Charmian Smith, who was on an expedition to Dusky Sound at the time, reports from near the epicentre.

Myths and mysteries surround William Larnach and his family, their extravagant castle on Otago Peninsula and their Gothic memorial tomb in Dunedin's Northern Cemetery.

Sitting near a window can be a distinctly chilly experience these wintry days, even if the window is not open.

When you research your family history, you are bound to come across skeletons in the cupboard and unattractive ancestors, as well as poignant stories and funny moments. Charmian Smith talks to British writer Ann Thwaite about Passageways, the story of her New Zealand family.

Firmly rooted in the south, Dunedin author Laurence Fearnley's third novel in a southern trilogy has just been published. She talks to Charmian Smith about the appeal of southern New Zealand's small towns for a writer.

There's something out there, we are just not sure what it is. Charmian Smith discovers that 400 years after Galileo spotted Jupiter's moons, and in the International Year of Astronomy, there is still plenty to discover in outer space.

War memorials abound around the country, often the only markers of localities that sent their young men overseas in service of the British Empire.

Dunedin may be known for its Victorian architecture, but architects have continued to design and build remarkable buildings in the South. Charmian Smith looks at an exhibition celebrating southern architecture in the past 100 years.

Director Lisa Warrington thought we'd seen as many Jane Austen adaptations on film and television as anyone needs - until she discovered British playwright Michael Fry's adaptation of Emma.

Laughter, they say, is the best medicine, which would make Jools and Lynda Topp medical specialists. Charmian Smith talks to the twins about their new film and 30 years spent entertaining the country.

The enormous scope for imagination in children's books has fascinated Raymond Huber since his childhood.

New Zealand might be a long way from Europe and the US where the Modern movement in architecture started, but buildings of the 1930s show that architects here were abreast of the trends.

Dunedin's cultural institutions, the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and the Otago Settlers Museum, were until recently corralled together under a single director. That relatively short-lived experiment in centralisation has ended with the appointment of two new directors, one for each.

Appearing a bit like a large, soft, juicy walnut, but hidden away between our ears, our brains may be under used, under loved and under-cared-for, but we certainly couldn't operate without them.

Each generation decries the behaviour of youth, but now neuroscientists understand why adolescents act the way they do.