WEST END PLAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 247, 19 October 1933, Page 24

WEST END PLAY.

NEW ZEALANDER'S SUCCESS. OTAGO MEDICAL STUDENT. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) DUNEDIN, this day. Dr. Merton Hodge, author of the play "The Wind and the Rain," which was mentioned in the cables as to be presented in London, took his medical degree at Otago University in 1929. He went Home and joined the medical section of the Royal Air Force, but gave up his profession in favour of the theatre. During his student days in Dunedin he was always prominent in capping concert forces, and even then his character acting was outstanding. Dr. Hodge always had strong literary and artistic leanings, and was most successful when at the' university in the writing of playlets, also in their production. The cable published in last night's "Star" was as follows:—After a week's success in Manchester, where the critics said it was "a delightful comedy, smoothly produced, - ' a New Zealander, Dr. Merton Hodge, is to present his play, "The Wind and the Rain," which is rather reminiscent of the bo3*s' school play "Young Woodley," at St. Martin's Theatre, under the direction of Miss Auriol Lee. Dr. Hodge is the first New Zealander to have secured a West End production. Another of his plays Las been brought for production in 1934.