Having interviewed much of New Zealand advertising royalty over the years the tables are turned as creative legend and former agency owner Richard Maddocks interviews Paul Catmur.
This was prompted by the recent launch of his novel, The Gutter Bar, but don’t worry it’s not solely about self-promotion. Richard probes into Paul's chequered past to find out what he was doing in a Bahamas casino, how come he ended up living in New Zealand, what the court case in Australia was about, his connection with The Tiger King, and some of the biggest disasters of his career. Paul anticipates you’ll enjoy the disasters.
Richard and Paul tend to get quite animated when they catch up so the podcast is quite long, but hopefully you’ll find their rambling to be entertaining. This was Richard's first time as interviewer so it’s all his fault. You can always listen in two glorious sittings.
And, to paraphrase Chairman Mao, the podcast of a thousand minutes starts with a single ear, so please dive in.
Beginning at Y&R London in 1990, Paul made his way down to New Zealand in 2000 where he's worked for the best part of 25 years. He was the creative lead at DDB New Zealand, later extended across Asia Pacific. He's had a short-lived move over to George Patterson Y&R Melbourne before returning to New Zealand co-founding Barnes, Catmur and Friends with Daniel Barnes in 2008, which they later sold to Dentsu finishing up in 2020. He now lives near Matakana spending his time writing, fishing and dog walking. His first novel The Gutter Bar was published in December 2025.
Name checks, in no particular order, go to Mike O’Sullivan, Pete Thompson, Marty O’Halloran, Paul Middleditch, Anita Davis, Russel Howcroft, Sharon Henderson, Jon Ramage, Daniel Barnes, Nick Gallagher, Rob Longuet, Brad Stratton, Kath Watson, Jack Vaughn, John Banks, Rupert Howell, Toby Talbot, Andy Blood, Nick Worthington, Mike Watson, Peter Masterton, Bridget Taylor, Regan Grafton, Tim Lindsay, Jerry Judge, Mike Babich, Dave Trott, Jeneal Rohrback, Paul Ardern, Charles Dickens.
