NEXT WEEK’S RADIO

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25537, 3 July 1948, Page 3

NEXT WEEK’S RADIO

. IDENTITY* MISSING After recent dutiful listening to three plays produced in the studios of the N.Z.8.5., I feel I should take my reward by hammering a few surly keys to admit Disappointment—tinged with Hope. The three plays were the Eden 'Philpotts’ costume-piece, “Kitty Brown of Bristol,” and two by Nc-rman Edwards —“Lady Eeware” (which I snapped off fairly enough half way through) and “The Intruders.” One of my troubles is that I can scarcely ever remember the titles of N.Z.B.S. plays the day after I have heard them. If I had not made a note of the brutes I should certainly have forgotten the Edwards ones during the last week. Then on some future unhappy occasion I should be sure to meet them again. . . . This happened to me with a play called “More Lives Than One,” which I began to hear more times than once, stopping eagerly each time after the first. In case anyone wants to be warned, “More Lives Than One” was very pi. as I remember it; the subject seemed to be the overcoming of fear in war. A play about overcoming fear in war, fear of being shot, fear of sudden death. Angels may fear to tread; but there’s just no telling with what exuberance the N.Z.B.S. will jump into delicate undergrowth. But my first surly note is: let us have labels that are as clear as the ones the railway department requires on checked luggage. It doesn’t seem much to ask. As fcr those two particular Norman Edwards plays. I should like to see them both blown off the smokeless air, never to be heard again. I can firmly plead for this blow-off after one painful hearing of “The Intruders” and one truncated hearing of “Lady Beware.” Beware indeed.

Back in the production studios of the N.Z.B.S. a few players, doubtless, are having incognito fun. I see the point about incognito, but I think the reasoning is unsound. Take X, the one with the LAUGH. (All listeners will know at once.) To-night he’s the collaborating bishop abetting Kitty Brown to cheat the gallows; last night the laugh, slightly soiled in the grubby office, belonged to a police superintendent or some such; and to-morrow, you’ll see. it will identity the villain Marlin. So there are the listeners all busy recognising this player or that, the one by the laugh, another by the Cockney elided t (which was perhaps suitable in “Shorty and Goliath”), and another by her general sound of shrewishness. Why not name them? Because they are few and they must double up. treble up. quadruple up in this play, the next, and the next. Does it matter? Would it be the first time in history? And anyway, would it be too much to ask that some new voices be tried? And supposing they have not the experience—which, next to short money strings, seems to be the usual excuse given—surely players may oe allowed to stroll before they become perfect. Who is afraid of the big bad star system? Let’s take on more voices and let’s have the names of the players. But chief of my complaints is this. The production, as productions, seem fair to fine rather than dull to drizzly; but all those efforts—good and pretty good and not so good—should be expended on something a whole dot better than the seaside commonplaces of a confidence trickster. I don’t want to hear excuses about royalties or performing rights or technical difficulties; but I do want to hear such a play as Eliot’s “The Family Reunion.” or some of the newer verse-drama the 8.8. C. has found it worth while to produce. If such things are done on the amateur stage in New Zealand —and they are done —it is useless to plead that we haven’t the talent, the experience, the background. How do you get background? Much the same way as you climb with an escalator —by taking the forward step. •

Three of the N.Z.B.S. productions to be heard next week are: “Flight of Fancy” by Philip Waterworth (4YA Wednesday); “Caligula Objects,’’ described as “the reactions of a Roman Emperor when they make i film of his life?’ by Wallace Geoffrev (3YA Thursday); and “Safe Deposit,” a play by James J. Eaton and Norman Hillas (4YA, Sunday). I’ve heard none of these productions. BEETHOVEN

It seems to be Beethoven week, with the first broadcast of the opera “Fidelio” for New Zealand on Sunday, July 11, from 2YA, with a 45-minute interruption for the national talk, the news, and so on. The pity is that at the same time 2YC will be presenting a particularly well arranged programme of early and later English music, with the Dolmetsch family, Wanda Landowska, and others. I sigh, but I must hear “Fidelio.” As everyone probably knows already, Beethoven’s only opera was first produced in Vienna in 1805 with the overture known as “Leonora” No. 2: next year a revised version was produced, with the overture called “Leonora” No. 3. The overture “Leonora” No. 1 was specially written for a performance in Prague in 1807—but the performance did not take place. Again revised, the opera was produced in Vienna in 1814 with a new overture, “Fidelio” in E major. The same day, Sunday, July 11, there will be two hearings of the Beethoven Bth Symphony—the Weingartner one from 2YA in the afternoon and the von Karaian one from 3YA. also in the afternoon, but with an hour’s space between; therefore both could be heard by the enthusiasts. For those who can hear 2YC on Saturday evening the big attraction will be the Beethoven 9th —Philadelphia choir and orchestra with Stokowski; I could wish for a recording of the Bruno Walter performance in which Isobel Baillie took part in London just before she left for New Zealand. There is to be a studio recital by Janet Howe and Arthur Servent from 3YA on Monday, July 5. Farmers should find some interest in 3YL’s programme to-morrow evening. In a 8.8. C. series John Green, the Gloucestershire farmer who visited New Zealand in 1946, will talk about his return to Gloucestershire. Mr Green has a happy radio

way; he is a farmer by inheritance, a lawyer by education, a 8.8. C. man by choice, and a Ministry of Agriculture liaison officer (during the war) by co-

option. His talk should be worth hearing. It follows the excellent 8.8. C. serial made from Anthony Trollope's “Orley Farm.” The following Sunday, July 11, 3YL will present another 8.8. C. feature of which I have read excellent reports—“ The Man Without a Mask,” being the life story of William Blake. —J.