BROADCASTING

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21967, 16 December 1936, Page 7

BROADCASTING

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS Sir,—ls it not time for someone to put in a word for those prospective victims, Eb and Zeb, ere they lay their devoted necks upon the block to make a grouchers’ holiday? Like many others, I am not enthused over these artists, neither am I shocked. They represent a type of humour satisfying to some, if not to all. It is for such a reason that Eb and Zeb fans willingly pay their radio fee. Why should they be denied what they pay for? Humour is, at any rate, as many-sided as music. It would be quite as just to insist on giving us classical music only, and cut out all the,lighter entertainment, including jazz, as to insist on vending only a class of humour which appeals to highly aesthetic and cultured listeners. That Eb and Zeb do provide one kind of humour goes without saying. And what is humour? We may analyse it as consisting of exaggerated instances of tautology, ambiguity, circumlocution, the exploitation of words and phrases with a double meaning, clever epigram, anti-climax, antithesis, conspicuous lack of euphony, burlesque metaphor, parade of the grandiose in phrase and title, juxtaposition of the sublime and ridiculous, etc. If the nonsense uttered by Eb and Zeb is analysed it will be •found to frequently exhibit many ol the above phases of humour. Rather than join in the hue and cry against Eb and Zeb I would raise a protest against some of the monologue and dialogue which is at times so subtly suggestive, and likely to be ethically harmful to the young and more susceptible of the family circle. —Yours, etc., REPRIEVE. December 15, 1936.