Dan Davin recounts

Press, 12 May 1981, Page 15

Dan Davin recounts

Listening

The New Zealand author and raconteur. Dan Davin, is the first of five eminent New Zealanders living in England who talks to James McNeish for a Concert Programme (9.00 tonight) series McNeish has called "Intimate Strangers." Dan Davin says in the programme: “Regrets? For a man of my temperament it would be impossible not to have regrets. But now -when I go back to New Zealand I feel a stranger — an intmate stranger . . . but a stranger.” “Shropshire Lad” 'The solo vocal album lor 11980 chosen by the Gramaphone magazine was a selection of song settings of Housinan’s "A Shropshire Lad.” an anthology contributed by a number of composers. In the second five programmes on “A Shropshire Lad” this week are six songs by George Butterworth. The artists are Graham Trew, baritone. and Roger Vignoles, piano. Concert. 9.30 p.m.

Radio play A 8.8. C. play by Alun Owen. “Lena. Oh my Lena.” Tom. a university student on vacation is working in a warehouse when he falls in love with Lena, a bottle washer in a brewery. The story is set in Liverpool where the writer observes with sympathy the social complexity of life abounding there. With his command of dialogue in an authentic vernacular, he creates the kind of atmosphere he knew well before becoming a professional writer. National. 3.07 p.m. World of books “You Should See Me in Pyjamas” is the eye-catching title of Robert Giddings’ autobiography. This teacher, writer and Ph.D. is a polio victim who has spent most of his life in a wheelchair. He tells on the 8.8. C. books

programme on Concert of 7 p.m. that this has not prevented him from doing most things he wanted. Indeed, it has saved him from things he never wanted, like team games and dancing. A tour of recent paperbacks on the programme includes three of R. K. Narayan's novels set in his fictional Indian town of Malgudi. There are also stories of the early deaths of such talented people as Keats and Marilyn Monroe in “Short Lives” by Katinka Matson. Another is the novel “Burger's Daughter” by the South African Nadine Gordimer and there is a reprint of the whodunnit “Final Curtain” by New Zealand's Ngaio Marsh. Two poets, John Fairfax and John Moat, have dared to produce a little paperback called “The Way to Write.” It is based on their experience of running courses for would-be writers. Some of the basics are described on the programme —

such as the need to cut down on those “nice touches” that can be so tempting. Jazz During January this year many different jazz instruments gathered in the capital under the auspices of the New Zealand Jazz Foundation. Men and women from all over the country came to tackle the challenges posed by 21 American tutors especially engaged for the occasion." RNZ’s John Joyce presents music, interviews and comments from this successful week-long clinic. National, 7.30 p.m. New Elgar A recording of Elgar orchestral music has recently been released by the London Philharmonic. Georg Solti conducts Elgar's In the South (Alassio), the Concert Overture. Op. 50 and Falstaff Symphonic Study, 0p.68. Concert, 8 p.m.