Radio diary

Press, 19 December 1988, Page 19

Radio diary

Christmas would not be Christmas for many without radio, and this week’s offerings are good as always. Andre Obey’s Frost at Midnight, on the Concert Programme at 9 this evening, is a play about a nativity play. The year is 1499 and a local tavern girl has been asked to play the Virgin Mary, because the girl who usually plays the part is ill. In spite of a boycott, the players continue. A 8.8. C. production.

Plains FM offers Polynesian Performing Arts at 9 this evening. Local performers present and talk about music they have written. Should be very entertaining. On Christmas Eve 35 years ago silt-laden waters spilled from the crater lake on Mount Ruapehu and roared down the Whanaehu River ripping out the railway bridge at Tangawai minutes before the Auckland express was to cross. One hundred and fifty-one people died in what was New Zealand’s

worst railway disaster. In Tangawai, on National Radio at 7.30 tomorrow evening, Veronica Allum recalls the tragedy and talks to some of those who were involved.

Comedian Spike Milligan is In the Psychiatrist’s Chair on National Radio at 8.5 tomorrow evening. Given Milligan’s wartime experiences, this should be interesting. Will he be able to resist bringing his zany irreverence into the last of six indepth interviews of famous personalities by Dr Anthony Clare? Orson Welles, once legendary in film, theatre and radio as writer, director and actor, is today most remembered for a 1938 broadcast that sent Americans into panic. In Citizen Welles, on the Concert Programme at 9 Wednesday evening, Nigel Andrews traces Welles’ career, with Welles’ colleagues and friends Peter Bogdanovich, John Houseman, Janet Leigh and Henry Jaglom. —James Homes