The mouse that roared? Not exactly, but “CityNews” did resist pressure from Hollywood. How so? All is revealed in this week’s “Seven Days” with IAN MEIKLE. 

FIRST, I need to set the scene: Meghan Markle and husband Prince Harry have dumped the New York-based PR firm who helped, apparently, to “extract them from the British royals”. I know. 

A tittle-tattle website called RadarOnline says it has confirmed “the unpopular Duchess of Sussex and her husband, Prince Harry, have severed ties with their US PR firm; with Sunshine Sachs telling us, ‘we no longer work’ with the exiled royals.”

Sunshine Sachs spins things such as corporate-image programs, crisis communication, reputation management and issues management, public affairs and media relations.

Hold those thoughts. A few weeks ago, “CityNews” sharp-eyed streaming columnist Nick Overall spotted a local name in the cast of what is believed to be the most expensive television series ever made ($US1 billion and counting for five seasons), Amazon Prime’s “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”.

The local name is Sara Zwangobani, formerly of Cook, who plays a harfoot named Marigold Brandyfoot.

As I glazed over, the diligent Overall tells me a harfoot is one of three breeds of hobbit in Middle Earth and Marigold is the mother of an inquisitive young harfoot named Nori. 

The show is a prequel set thousands of years before the events in JRR Tolkien’s famous books “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings”.

In an interview titled “Sara comes home a star” in June, 2011, “CityNews” arts editor Helen Musa hailed Zwangobani as “not a manufactured Canberra-girl-made-good – she’s the real thing”. 

She wrote that Zwangobani was born in Canberra, raised in Cook and went to the local primary school. 

“She enjoyed ‘a great drama program’ at Hawker College under theatre educationist and writer Frank McKone in what she regards as the college’s golden days,” waxed Musa. 

“She’s a huge fan of her home town and still has family here… declaring herself ‘envious’ of friends who’ve been able to make their lives here permanently.

“Trained here as a hoofer at Betsy Sawers’ School of Dance, she worked with Human Veins Dance Theatre, then left in the early ‘90s for the Victorian College of the Arts. 

“On graduating, she was headhunted by John Howard (the actor, not the politician) to work in Sydney.”

In film and TV, she found steady roles on “All Saints”,“Home and Away” and “Love My Way”, and parts in films such as “The Merchant of Fairness” and “Disgrace”.

Back to reporter Overall, who has tracked down Zwangobani’s management and writes a polite request to her screen agent Naomi Hannan for an interview: “I’m interested in writing a story on Sara Zwangobani and her new role in ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ as a major feature story for our magazine.

“I’d be interested in asking Sara about growing up in Canberra, how she got into acting, and what it’s been like getting to work on this new series.

“I was wondering whether a phone interview could be arranged some time this week at a time suited to her…”

The reply was: “Nick, looping in Sara’s publicity team, Erin and Erica from Sunshine Sachs who will take this forward with you. Over to you, team! Nx”

Light-bulb moment: Sunshine Sachs; remember? The spinners dumped by Harry and her. 

“Hi Nick, coming back to you here! Would the possibility of a cover be on the table for discussion?” asks Erin Piepenbrok, a senior SS account executive, based in Los Angeles. 

“My editor would first have to see the images of Sara and read the article before making a decision on this, but I think this would make for a great cover,” wrote Overall encouragingly, but conceding the decision was above his pay grade.

“We’d need a guaranteed offer for the cover for sure,” came the response from California. 

Not how we do it, Erin. And that’s where we left it; like Harry and Meghan, giving Sunshine Sachs the flick, but sorry the local-girl-made-good, the “huge fan of her hometown”, “the real thing” Sara Zwangobani has media representation that turns her back on the little local rag that won’t be bullied into blindly agreeing to their terms. 

Odd thing was, had we got the interview and knowing how well Nick would have written the story, it would probably have made the cover. 

GOWRIE snout Bjorn Moore sent through a photo of a sign hammered into an overgrown brush/grassland area behind his local primary school. It had piqued his curiosity. 

“I walked the area to see for myself if there was an obvious problem,” he reports. 

“It has worn paths with some mounds of dirt piled around that makes a bit of a track for kids to jump their bikes over. It’s been there for years and years.”

For kids. On bikes. For years and years… and, he says, nothing appeared to be wrong.

“I was expecting to see some hazards that formed a dangerous environment.”

Given the sign threatens to “…remove the track”, Bjorn emailed asking what the ACT government’s requirements for a bike track are. 

The Gowrie kids are in for a shock: to hang on to their bike track they’ll have to identify a separate proposal, design and construction stages, which will include site visits, nominating project managers, site map and documentation, demonstrating community support, identifying resources and evidence of funding, establish time frames, registering volunteers and completing safety training, entering a formal agreement with the government (to be covered for insurance purposes), engaging a qualified track builder and on-going maintenance upon completion. 

“I suggest this may be the end of most makeshift local neighbourhood bike tracks with the flattening of such likely,” says Bjorn. 

Ian Meikle is the editor of “CityNews” and can be heard with Rod Henshaw on the “CityNews Sunday Roast” news and interview program, 2CC, 9am-noon.