shows including Skitz, Telly Laughs, The Panel, Sportzah, and TV3's rugby coverage. His plays include Dawn Raids, Island Girls, A Frigate Bird Sings (co-written with Dave Fane and Nathaniel Lees), and Niu Sila (co-written with Dave Armstrong). Dawn Raids was reissued in 2018 by Playmarket. Kightley also co-wrote and took a lead role in the highly successful Sione’s Wedding movies. He was a breakfast announcer on Niu FM until January 2007. He has also been on RNZ National/Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa National as a guest, as well as guest-hosting Kim Hill's Saturday Morning show during Summer 2007–2008. In 2006 he received a Laureate Award from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand. He is a member of the comedy group the Naked Samoans, who together wrote the animated television series bro'Town. In 2013 Kightley played the title character in the police drama Harry, which he also co-wrote. He directed Madeleine Sami's TV3 comedy Super City, and co-directed a US pilot of it with Taika Waititi. In 2019, Kightley led a panel for Auckland Council on why people should vote in local body elections. In 2022, Kightley was elected to the Henderson-Massey local board at the 2022 New Zealand local elections, representing the Labour Party. Honours and awards In the 2009 New Year Honours, Kightley was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to television and the theatre. In 2016, he was awarded the Senior Pacific Artist Award with Dave Fane at the Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifka Awards. In 2019, Kightley received the Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer's Residency, "a unique opportunity for a New Zealand writer of Pacific heritage to work on a creative writing project exploring Pacific identify, culture, or history." The significance of this award is the place it has in the development of contemporary Maori and Pacifica culture, and of Kightley's stature within the history of that development. The Residency, located at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, was inaugurated by film director, writer, and educator Sima Urale in 2004; other film and theatre artists who have received the award include Victor Rodger (2006), Toa Fraser (2009), and Makerita Urale (2010). The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is also where Merata Mita "developed [the] Academy for Creative Media’s indigenous filmmaking program. In October 2019, Kightley was presented with a Scroll of Honour from the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand for