DRAMA IN AUSTRALIA

Evening Star, Issue 22578, 20 February 1937, Page 4

DRAMA IN AUSTRALIA

ORGANISATION OF SPECIAL DEPARTMENT Important developments are taking place in the organisation of a Federal radio play department within the Australian Broadcasting Commission. Some months ago Mr Frank D. Clewlow, the chief play producer for the Australian Broadcasting Commission at Melbourne, was appointed Federal Controller of Productions at Broadcast House, the aim being to co-ordinate tho efforts of the various State A.B.G. play-producing authorities and generally to enlarge the scope and popularity ot the radio play in its widest sense. Under Mr Clewlow this department has grown rapidly. ~ Two playwrights were added to the nucleus of staff. Mr Edmund, Barclay’s radio dramas are already well known. Mr Max Afford, the young Adelaide writer who won the 1900 ABC play competition with Merry-Go-Round,’ and also the South Australian Centenary play competition with ‘Colonel Light tho Founder, was brought to Sydney. Both are engaged m writing original scripts and adapting stage plays and other works to radio purposes. . , - The latest appointment is that or Mr Leslie Clarke Rees, 8.A., as Federal Play Editor, Mr Rees, a Western Australian, is well known as a theatre and film critic, and recently returned from six years in London, where ho was senior dramatic critic of a leading, weekly, a member of the London Critics’ Club, and contributor on theatrical, film, and radio topics to many American, English, and Australian journals. Since his return Jic has been engaged in play criticism on a Sydney newspaper, and has also read several hundreds of radio plays for the A.B.G. As Federal Play Editor his function will be partly to adapt plays, partly to supervise the reading of manuscripts submitted to the commission, and (in conjunction with Mr Clewlow) to advise authors. . Tho hope of the department is that many' of the more serious 'authors of the country will be encouraged to write original plays for the radio. It is proposed to pay considerably higher fees for first-class work than hitherto. It is believed that there are in Australia many potential dramatists of quality, whoso interest in tho theatre has been starved by lack of a professional market. Arrangements have been made to secure the radio rights of English, American, and Continental stag© plays, which will be adapted by the A.B.G. staff. Plans are under way for making interesting radio use of various dramatic classics, perhaps in series, and outstanding radio scripts as used by the 8.8. C. and other overseas broadcasting services will be obtained.

The U.S.A. coastguard service has adopted a system of aviation broadcasts to warn villages and towns of approaching hurricanes. Itadio apparatus fitted to aeroplanes includes a publicaddress amplifier with loudspeakers projecting sound over a wide area.