Tāme Iti’s colourful memoir covers his decades-long fight for Indigenous rights in New Zealand and takes aim at ‘saboteurs’ in the government

There are so many ways to begin telling the story of Tāme Iti, arguably New Zealand’s most recognisable Māori rights activist, who was once branded a terrorist by the state and is now considered by many a national treasure.

You could begin with his formative school years at the foot of Te Urewera ranges, where he was made to write the lines “I will not speak Māori” as punishment for speaking his language – lines that have since become a prominent feature of his art and activism.

Tāme Iti’s colourful memoir covers his decades-long fight for Indigenous rights in New Zealand and takes aim at ‘saboteurs’ in the government

There are so many ways to begin telling the story of Tāme Iti, arguably New Zealand’s most recognisable Māori rights activist, who was once branded a terrorist by the state and is now considered by many a national treasure.

You could begin with his formative school years at the foot of Te Urewera ranges, where he was made to write the lines “I will not speak Māori” as punishment for speaking his language – lines that have since become a prominent feature of his art and activism.

Tāme Iti’s colourful memoir covers his decades-long fight for Indigenous rights in New Zealand and takes aim at ‘saboteurs’ in the government

There are so many ways to begin telling the story of Tāme Iti, arguably New Zealand’s most recognisable Māori rights activist, who was once branded a terrorist by the state and is now considered by many a national treasure.

You could begin with his formative school years at the foot of Te Urewera ranges, where he was made to write the lines “I will not speak Māori” as punishment for speaking his language – lines that have since become a prominent feature of his art and activism.

• Frank faces his former club Brentford on Saturday

• Dane urges team to ‘be calm’ if they concede first

Thomas Frank has admitted he is still to decide on his best Tottenham team but promised his players would not panic should they concede another early goal in Saturday’s meeting with his former club Brentford.

Spurs suffered their record-equalling 10th home defeat of 2025 against Fulham last Saturday after going 2-0 down in the sixth minute and a section of supporters booed the goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario after his mistake for the second. But a spirited performance at Newcastle in midweek in which Cristian Romero equalised with an overhead kick in added time has lifted spirits after three successive losses.

• Frank faces his former club Brentford on Saturday

• Dane urges team to ‘be calm’ if they concede first

Thomas Frank has admitted he is still to decide on his best Tottenham team but promised his players would not panic should they concede another early goal in Saturday’s meeting with his former club Brentford.

Spurs suffered their record-equalling 10th home defeat of 2025 against Fulham last Saturday after going 2-0 down in the sixth minute and a section of supporters booed the goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario after his mistake for the second. But a spirited performance at Newcastle in midweek in which Cristian Romero equalised with an overhead kick in added time has lifted spirits after three successive losses.

• Frank faces his former club Brentford on Saturday

• Dane urges team to ‘be calm’ if they concede first

Thomas Frank has admitted he is still to decide on his best Tottenham team but promised his players would not panic should they concede another early goal in Saturday’s meeting with his former club Brentford.

Spurs suffered their record-equalling 10th home defeat of 2025 against Fulham last Saturday after going 2-0 down in the sixth minute and a section of supporters booed the goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario after his mistake for the second. But a spirited performance at Newcastle in midweek in which Cristian Romero equalised with an overhead kick in added time has lifted spirits after three successive losses.

Period drama parody has some decent and often smart gags and benefits from a game cast including Damian Lewis and Thomasin McKenzie

Perhaps it’s the feeling of end times in the air: after years of inactivity, spoofs are making a comeback . This summer saw the resurgence of the lighthearted genre, which at its best sends up the pretensions of overly serious genre with a barrage of pitched cliches, sight gags and stupid-clever puns. The Naked Gun , starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson in a spoof of a buddy-cop spoof, opened to moderate box office success; the hapless rock band dialed it back up to 11 in Spinal Tap II: The End Continues . Reboots of horror spoof gold-standard Scary Movie and the Mel Brooks Star Wars rip Spaceballs were greenlit, and rumors of a return for international man of mystery Austin Powers. Unserious times, it seems, begets appetite for knowingly unserious, joke-dense, refreshingly shallow fun.

The latest of these goofy parodies, which premieres, on the beyond-parody day that Fifa awarded Donald Trump an inaugural peace prize and Netflix announced its plan to buy Warner Bros, is Fackham Hall, a Downton Abbey spoof that pokes at the very pokeable pretensions of gilded British period dramas. (Yes, Fackham rhymes with a crass kiss-off to the aristocracy.) Written by British Irish comedian and TV presenter Jimmy Carr and directed by Jim O’Hanlon, Fackham Hall has plenty of material to work with – the historical soap’s grand finale just premiered in September, 15 years after Julian Fellowes’s series started going upstairs-downstairs with ludicrous portent – and wastes none of it. From ludicrous start (servants rolling joints for the household and responding to calls from the “masturbatorium”) to ludicrous finish (someone manages to marry a second cousin rather than a first!), this enjoyable silver-spoon romp packs all of its 97 minutes with jokes and bits ranging from the puerile to the genuinely funny, proving that there may yet be more to wring from eat-the-rich satire.

Period drama parody has some decent and often smart gags and benefits from a game cast including Damian Lewis and Thomasin McKenzie

Perhaps it’s the feeling of end times in the air: after years of inactivity, spoofs are making a comeback . This summer saw the resurgence of the lighthearted genre, which at its best sends up the pretensions of overly serious genre with a barrage of pitched cliches, sight gags and stupid-clever puns. The Naked Gun , starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson in a spoof of a buddy-cop spoof, opened to moderate box office success; the hapless rock band dialed it back up to 11 in Spinal Tap II: The End Continues . Reboots of horror spoof gold-standard Scary Movie and the Mel Brooks Star Wars rip Spaceballs were greenlit, and rumors of a return for international man of mystery Austin Powers. Unserious times, it seems, begets appetite for knowingly unserious, joke-dense, refreshingly shallow fun.

The latest of these goofy parodies, which premieres, on the beyond-parody day that Fifa awarded Donald Trump an inaugural peace prize and Netflix announced its plan to buy Warner Bros, is Fackham Hall, a Downton Abbey spoof that pokes at the very pokeable pretensions of gilded British period dramas. (Yes, Fackham rhymes with a crass kiss-off to the aristocracy.) Written by British Irish comedian and TV presenter Jimmy Carr and directed by Jim O’Hanlon, Fackham Hall has plenty of material to work with – the historical soap’s grand finale just premiered in September, 15 years after Julian Fellowes’s series started going upstairs-downstairs with ludicrous portent – and wastes none of it. From ludicrous start (servants rolling joints for the household and responding to calls from the “masturbatorium”) to ludicrous finish (someone manages to marry a second cousin rather than a first!), this enjoyable silver-spoon romp packs all of its 97 minutes with jokes and bits ranging from the puerile to the genuinely funny, proving that there may yet be more to wring from eat-the-rich satire.

Period drama parody has some decent and often smart gags and benefits from a game cast including Damian Lewis and Thomasin McKenzie

Perhaps it’s the feeling of end times in the air: after years of inactivity, spoofs are making a comeback . This summer saw the resurgence of the lighthearted genre, which at its best sends up the pretensions of overly serious genre with a barrage of pitched cliches, sight gags and stupid-clever puns. The Naked Gun , starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson in a spoof of a buddy-cop spoof, opened to moderate box office success; the hapless rock band dialed it back up to 11 in Spinal Tap II: The End Continues . Reboots of horror spoof gold-standard Scary Movie and the Mel Brooks Star Wars rip Spaceballs were greenlit, and rumors of a return for international man of mystery Austin Powers. Unserious times, it seems, begets appetite for knowingly unserious, joke-dense, refreshingly shallow fun.

The latest of these goofy parodies, which premieres, on the beyond-parody day that Fifa awarded Donald Trump an inaugural peace prize and Netflix announced its plan to buy Warner Bros, is Fackham Hall, a Downton Abbey spoof that pokes at the very pokeable pretensions of gilded British period dramas. (Yes, Fackham rhymes with a crass kiss-off to the aristocracy.) Written by British Irish comedian and TV presenter Jimmy Carr and directed by Jim O’Hanlon, Fackham Hall has plenty of material to work with – the historical soap’s grand finale just premiered in September, 15 years after Julian Fellowes’s series started going upstairs-downstairs with ludicrous portent – and wastes none of it. From ludicrous start (servants rolling joints for the household and responding to calls from the “masturbatorium”) to ludicrous finish (someone manages to marry a second cousin rather than a first!), this enjoyable silver-spoon romp packs all of its 97 minutes with jokes and bits ranging from the puerile to the genuinely funny, proving that there may yet be more to wring from eat-the-rich satire.