Visitors in concert

Press, 24 November 1980, Page 18

Visitors in concert

[Listening,

Two American jazz musicians, Art van Damme and Johnny Smith, who play accordian and guitar, were recent visitors to New Zealand. They were recorded by Radio New Zealand in a half-hour programme in which they were joined bylocal musicians Jim Wilson, bass, and George Shaw on [drums. This programme is [included in “Jazz Tonight” [on the National programme [at 9.15 p.m.

Shaw as critic George Bernard Shaw, the music critic, as well as Shaw, the dramatist, is being featured on the Monday Concert programme during the broadcasts of his epic, “Back to Methuselah,” as a five-part series. Ken Blackbum reads selections from Shaw’s music criticisms with the subject this week, musicians and their audience, at 7.25 p.m.

Old sounds Recorded theatrical performances are the focus of today's programme in the series in which Brian Salkeld leafs through sound archives. Included are a 1934 recording made by Ivor Novello. Edna Best in a scene from Novello’s play, “Murder in Mayfair,” and a recording of Noel Coward in his own play, “This Happy Breed.” Gertrude Lawrence and Douglas Fairbanks, Jnr, can also be heard in an excerpt from Clemence Dane’s play, “Moonlight is Silver.” The programme ends with part of what has become a classic theatrical recording — Gertrude Lawrence and Noel Coward in “Private Lives.” National programme, 8 p.m.

Writing on love The theme is love this week in the extended anthology of New Zealand prose and poetry through the years with excerpts selected by Dora Somerville. Concert programme, 8.10 p.m.

‘Melhuselali’

Shaw’s “Back to Methuhuselah" reaches part four, “Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman,” on the Concert programme at 8.55 p.m. The year is now AD 3000. An elderly gentleman on the shores of Galway- Bay has come from the (capital of the British Commonwealth in Bagdad to visit his ancestral shores. He is not unlike the G.B.S. we knew, but, old as he is, he is one of the dying race of short livers. By the vear 3000 a new race exists that lives .as long as people choose. The old gentleman wants to stay, but he is told he will “die of discouragement.” He answers: "If I go back I shall die of disgust and desnair ... it is the meaning of life, not of death, that makes banishment so terrible to me.” An introductory talk by Bruce Mason precedes the play. Plater play

Tomorrow afternoon’s 8.8. C. Radio Theatre play is a comedy about the events that might have taken place in a small Yorkshire town at the time of the Burgess and Maclean spy scandal. Alan Plater got the idea for his play from looking at the “Tinies” for 1955. He found five days with interesting juxtapositions. They include Kim Philby’s defection, Princess Margaret’s renouncing of Group Captain Townsend, and hostilities in the Middle East. National programme, 3.07 p.m. tommorow.

Cricket Commentary on' the oneday cricket match between New Zealand and Australia at Sydney tomorrow will be carried by Radio New Zealand’s “Sports Roundup." From 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. commentary can be heard from 2YC and 3YC, with the other YC transmitters joining “Sports Roundup" at 5.30 p.m. after their commitment to broadcasting Parliament ceases. The National programme will carry the cricket

from 7.30 p.m. un-til midnight or until the end of play. News at 8.30 pm. on the National network is cancelled, ana the 10 p.m. news may w delayed depending on the state of the cricket.

Book world A South African writer, Elsa Joubert, began writing the book, “Poppie," in 1976 when a black woman coroe to her door in Capetown after the riots there. The book (originally published in the (language the two women shared. Afrikaans) tells the sion’ of an African family struggling to survive together in South Africa. Elsa Joubert on "8.8. C. World of Books” tomorrow tells the background and the message of “Poppie," which is being greeted eagerly in its English translation. Concert programme 7 p.m. tomorrow.

Although greatly admired as a writer. Evelyn Waugh has not been thought of as an amiable man. and his diaries certainly did not reveal him as such. However, a more endearing side of Waugh now emerges in a volume of his letters recently published. The editor of the letters, Mark Amory, talks on the books programme about the wav in which Waugh’s affection for his family shines through in the letters. S> Sil »

The hero of “The Garden of Weapons," John Gardner’s latest spy thriller, unlike most fictional spy masters is extremely visible, being a very large man indeed. He takes a lot of risks and. as the author admits on the books programme, he is fooled by a number of people in the course of his investigations. This is a spy master who can be misled by the flaws in his own character.

Soprano recital The internationallyacclaimed Spanish-born soprano, Victoria de los Angeles, was recorded in recital at the Roval Festival Hall in 1964 with the pianist, Gerald Moore, as her accompanist. From that recital she sings traditional songs and songs by snch composers as Handel, Schubert, Brahms, Rodrigo, Vaughan Williams, and Falla. Concert programme, 8 p.m. tomorrow.