Family saga on radio

Press, 23 June 1981, Page 15

Family saga on radio

The “Armstrong Account,” ■will be includedin Tuesday’s "Tonight Show” on the commercial network for the next 26 weeks. The play spotlights the life and times of a New Zealand family from 1912 until 1929. We follow their anxiety through the Great War, prosperity in the business ‘boom” of the 1920 s and their problems with the onset of the Depression. The Armstrongs live in the Waikato. They are primarily stock and station agents but .with their farming interests, a picture emerges from the series which illustrates our town and country life. Joseph is the grandfather and “founder” of the Armstrong clan. His son James is married to Elspeth and they have three children — Edward, Marti and Alice. Attitudes are changing during that period and conflicts inevitably arise, particularly between the generations. In Episode One tonight, the characters are introduced through the occasion of Edward's 21st birthday — an event which fails to end as happily as it began.

Radio is play

secret. Someone is leaking information . . . but who? Is it Mathew Hurrell, a highly talented scientist who is far from discreet? Schumann One of the great German song cycles is Schumann's Dichterliebe — A . Poet's Love. It was composed in 1840, Schumann's Year of Song, and consists of 16 settings from Heinrich Hein's "Buch der Lieder.” Schumann's song cycle, A Poet's Life, is sung in a Radio New Zealand studio recording by baritone Barry Mora with Michael Houstoun, piano.

"Fell Swoop,” a thriller by Gordon Lyall, is heard on National today at 3.07. The work that goes on in Fellbridge Research Station in the wilds of Yorkshire is top

Listening