The duo were noted for bringing a camp humour, together with an element of slapstick, to the usually staid television cookery genre.

At the time, abortions were illegal in New Zealand, and she was charged and tried for murder, along with the doctor she employed at her clinic to treat the clients who wanted a termination.

Hudson moved to Auckland, and they were soon living together, initially in Halls' flat in St Stephens Avenue, before they bought a small one bedroom cottage (with two single beds) with a swimming pool at 103 Brighton Road, Parnell.

[3] Hudson and Halls opened a women's shoe shop, Julius Garfinkle's, in 1971 in the Strand Arcade, Queen Street, Auckland.

[4] By 1975, the pair had sold their businesses and they auditioned for the cookery slot on the TVNZ afternoon magazine programme Speakeasy by cooking a beef wellington.

Hudson and Halls bought a 17 acre farm in Leigh, Auckland (where they filmed their 1984 series) and a 1962 Bentley, despite neither of them having a valid driving licence.

[3][4] Hudson and Halls appeared on TV telethons, endorsed products, and were cover subjects for women's magazines.

However, reviews of their first series were universally hostile, with one critic commenting "if the BBC wanted a couple of ageing chorus boys who can open a can of lychees they could have found them closer to home".

The Daily Star called them "pathetically unfunny", Spike Milligan described them as a "failed Laurel and Hardy combo" and The Independent wrote, "They think they're such fun, so camp.

The show followed the same format; cooking and celebrity guest interviews, including personalities such as Thelma Barlow, Barbara Windsor, Pam St Clement, Bonnie Langford, Dora Bryan, Gorden Kaye and Christopher Biggins.

[10] Hudson and Halls moved from New Zealand to the United Kingdom in 1990 and lived in a flat at 60 Jermyn Street, London.

[3] After thirty years, their long-term professional and personal relationship ended when Hudson developed prostate cancer and died in September 1992 in London, aged 61, with Halls at his side.

A devastated Halls changed his surname by deed poll to Hudson-Halls in January 1993, and continued to make some solo television appearances.

[4][11] Halls, grief-stricken and in dire financial straits, committed suicide the following year, taking an overdose of Hudson's morphine pills.

After the dishes had been cooked, the duo would don their dinner jackets and take the food to the table, where they interviewed their guest while sampling their culinary creations.