Christmas songs

Press, 19 December 1981, Page 15

Christmas songs

The bulk of the music in this week’s “Saturday Scrapbook” at 7.30 p.m. on National radio is specially requested by listeners and this week includes a number of Christmas songs. Philip Liner will present old-time dance music as usual at 8 o’clock and at 9 o’clock “The Clitheroe Kid" returns for a special episode. In this one Jimmy Clitheroe has had trouble getting some money for his mother's Christmas present but in the end — being the Clitheroe kid — he makes a profit. Readings Astrid Westergaard is a small Danish girl growing up in the Manawatu in the 19305. Wide-eyed and full of imagination, she has an insatiable curiosity about the world around her. Contrasting with the “British Empirestyle” primary school she attends is the pull of her Danish heritage and the myths and legends of Jutland. Astrid drifts through those early school years half in a fantasy world made up of Vikings and Valhalla, of dragon ships and runes. Author Yvonne du Fresne, herself of Danish extraction, drew on her own childhood for the stories that make up “Astrid of the Limberlost" and the series, like Astrid's imaginative view of life, is a mixture of fact and fiction. Yvonne du Fresne herself reads the 13 stories of "Astrid of the Limberlost" for Radio New Zealand (Concert, 7.30 p.m.). The stories were commissioned by R.N.Z., first broadcast by the National Programme and subequently published. Because of the acclaim received for this

first Astrid series. Yvonne du Fresne has since written the follow-up.series, “The Growing of Astrid Westergaard," i which is being broadcast on ; the National Programme I (10.30 p.m. readings) and is again read by the author. Sammy Davis Sammy Davis, Jun., is the artist chosen by Peter Harcourt for this week’s edition of his series on Sunday morning at 9.33 on National about entertainers he considers outstanding. For Peter Harcourt the peak of Sammy Davis' career came with his role as “Sportin’ Life" in the film version of “Porgy and Bess": “What a revelation it was to see his strutting, scheming, seductively evil approach to the role,” says Harcourt. "It seemed to me that Sammy Davis made ‘Sportin’ Life’ precisely the kind of street-wise ghetto pimp and double-dealer that Dußose Heyward and the Gershwin 'brrothers had created.” Playhouse "Convergence on Bethlehem" is a nativity play about the arguments and speculations of two angels watching over the events leading to Bethlehem. Between them in 21 songs and poems, they eventually tell the story of the nativity. The play was written by Clive Sansom. | music by Sidney Sager, and recorded' by the 8.8. C. in a | Bristol church. It can be | heard on Sunday’s National | Programme at 3 p.m. |

Listeningj