It’s well known that people anthropomorphise certain creatures, usually on the basis they have big eyes. In the case of the penguins it’s because they walk on two legs

Geoff Chapple is an author, journalist, biographer of Rewi Alley, creator of the New Zealand-long walking track Te Araroa, and script writer, notably of The Navigator by Vincent Ward.

Graeme Lay converses with Geoff about his first stage play, Hatch, the Plight of the Penguins, based on Joseph Hatch, a New Zealander who invented a way to extract batching oil by rendering down penguins.

Geoff reveals how the Hatch story was discovered by him on a trip to the sub-Antarctic islands and how, through his research into the man and the morality campaign around Hatch’s activities, the tale drew him in.