Reporter's Diary

Press, 18 July 1978, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Stage fright TONIGHT the annual Theatre Federation oneact play festival will begin at the Repertory Theatre. Fifteen plays from Canterbury drama groups have entered in the competition, which will finish on Saturday. In a recent festival, a reader tells us, actresses taking part in one of the plays were very nervous, and when a pregnant pause between lines lengthened into an uncomfortable silence, the prompt realised her moment had come. She hissed the lines, twice, with no result. Then she shouted them out loud, wondering what was wrong with the stage accoustics. Whereupon one of the actresses detached herself from the others, walked over to

the prompt, and said: “We all know what the line is, dear, but who is supposed to say it?”

Calling all yodellers “HEIDI”, the forthcoming Canterbury Children’s Theatre production, which is set in the Swiss Alps, demands a fair amount of yodelling from the mountain tops to give it the required authenticity. But the Children’s Theatre group has encountered considerable difficulty in getting a recording of yodelling. It seems that every record with yodelling on it, also contains orchestral accompaniment. And the illusion of a yodel echoing over alpine valleys would be totally destroyed if the audience could also hear a full symphony orchestra playing from the same peak. So the theatre is asking for yodellers — male and female — to come forward and help them out by yodelling on to a tape to be played during performances. Open invitation BRIDGE in New Zealand, a voluntary educational trust which helps young New Zealanders travel overseas in cultural exchanges, is holding a “starvation lunch” oh Friday week at noon in the Multiple Sclerosis Hall, in St Asaph Street. The trust has issued an open invita-

tion to the luncheon — anyone who wishes to pay $2.50 for the soup and cheese “starvation lunch” is more than welcome, according to the organiser, Mrs Olive Brown. The purpose of the luncheon is to explain the trust, boost its finances, as well as provide a stimulating speaker to take the guests’ minds off their stomachs. This year the speaker will be Mr Roland Jones, of the Steiner School, Christchurch, who will speak about the Steiner system of education, which emphasises the sensitivity of the individual child. Tickets for the luncheon are available from Mrs Brown at the spinal unit of the St John of God Hospital, Halswell. Generous Jim FOR $2.50, you can walk into Big Jim Butcher’s restaurant in Pakersburg, West Virginia, and gorge yourself. Big Jim, who has estimated his weight at 160 kg ever since he topped the limit on the scales, encourages his diners to keep on returning to the buffet line as often as they can manage. Inside, he has displayed signs that read, “You can’t leave here hungry” and the sign over the door outside reads, “The heck with the diet, come on in and overeat.” IT hite Christmas THE suggestion made by a delegate at the Anglican Synod last year that Christmas be celebrated in New Zealand in the middle

of winter, rather than in mid-summer, has been taken quite seriously by several families that we have heard of; In the last three or four weeks, a number of readers have told us about their midwinter’s mouth-watering Christmas dinners, complete with roast turkey, plum pud, and all the trimmings. It sounds very sensible at this time of the year—and also ' very tempting. Snotty cocktails GUESTS at a 21st birthday party held in Christchurch recently were startled when their host asked if they wanted snow with their drinks. Those in the know thought they were about to be treated to a quick snort of cocaine—known in some circles as “snow.” But it turned out literally to be snow, preserved in an ice bucket after being collected from the backyard during the snowfall in the city a few days previously. Good match AUSTRALIA’S first cloak-and-dagger wedding will take place in January, when Mr John Cloak wifi marry Miss Sandra Dagger. The Adelaide couple met when Miss Dagger’s car broke down. Mr Cloak towed it home for her and they have been ‘‘Cloak and Dagger” ever since. —Felicity Price