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"Biggest thing I've ever done": Tom Sainsbury on turning his podcast into a TV show

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Tue, 16 Dec 2025, 9:46am
Photo / Supplied
Photo / Supplied

"Biggest thing I've ever done": Tom Sainsbury on turning his podcast into a TV show

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Tue, 16 Dec 2025, 9:46am

Tom Sainsbury is back in our ears, and he’ll soon be on our screens too. 

Season three of the Kiwi comedian’s one-man murder mystery series has just released, but it’s actually season one that’s about to make the headlines. 

The first season of his ‘Small Town Scandal’ podcast has been turned into an eight episode TV series, releasing in February next year. 

It’s the biggest project Sainsbury’s done to date, but he revealed to Heather du Plessis-Allan that he’s struggling a little bit to recognise just how big of a moment it is. 

“When you’re kind of working on a TV show, it’s just such a long process,” he explained. 

“When you kind of live with it, to the minutiae of watching every little bit of it, it doesn’t feel like a big moment.”  

Unlike the podcast, in which Sainsbury voices every role, he’s performing alongside other actors in the TV show – a bit of a change of pace.

"The funny thing is we talked about me playing characters at the very beginning,” he told du Plessis-Allan. 

“We talked about it, but it just turned, like, as soon as you do the kind of maths, it’s the logistics, it’s too bonkers.”  

While he’s no longer behind the wheel for every character, Sainsbury is very happy with how actors such as Morgana O’Reilly have replicated them.  

“They’ve gone above and beyond.”  

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