"THE PERFECT LISTENER"

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 131, 30 November 1933, Page 23

"THE PERFECT LISTENER"

Broadcasting demands a Special technique, both in the artist and the listener, writes Mr. St. George Kitson in the "Bookman."

The perfect wireless artist is a man who gestures with his voice, and ignor? ing studio audiences, announcers and all other immediate ornaments, however attractive, concentrates entirely on the listener.

The perfect listener Heeds a brain soveral times larger than that required by film or theatre "fails."- The listener is an individual, not one of a crowd. There are no boisterous galleryites or luxuriously comfortabld'.'seats to put him in a good humour. He" is not enveloped in soothing darkness! Surrounded* by the familiar objects of his1 household, he does not experience any5 ofHhose enjoyable thrills that are part and parcel of a "night out."

There is only the wireless set and the voice that issues from it. It is entertainment stripped bare of glamour. Most listeners, unconsciously irked by the lack of external stimuli, -stare at their sets in a "Go-ahead-amuse-me-if-you-cau!f' frame of mind.

The perfect listener realises that wireless variety is a unique form of entertainment. He knows that. the friendly, all-here-to-be-pleased atmosphere attendant on film and theatre shows is necessarily denied him. He uses his imagination. He turns a blind eye to his environment, visualises the bi'oadeaster whose voice he hears, and supposes that the artist is in his room, talking or singing to him alone. By thus creating an air of intimacy the listener coascs to iegret the absence of sympathetic compsnry." ' ""'; These underlying principles are, the secret of all good 'listening, irrespective of the nature of tho broadcast. They aro simple precepts, bnt the fact that they aro not apprehended by most licence-holders is evidenced by the critical methods of the 8.8.C.'s dotracr tors. The 8.8.C. is sm-ely more sinned against than sinning, and until the standard of listening has achieved a considerably higher plane, amateurwireless critics would be better employed in cultivating their gardens. ■.