PICTURE OF B.B.C.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22262, 9 November 1935, Page 13 (Supplement)

PICTURE OF 8.8.C.

NATIONAL FIGURES SCENE The British Broadcasting Corporation revealed itself for the first time on the cinema screen recently, when the official film " B.B.C.—the Voice of Britain," was shown publicly at the Carlton in London. This film is an impressionistic patchwork surveying the whole field of British broadcasting. Glimpses are seen of many of the national figures whose voices have become familiar through the microphone, headed by the King and including Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Mac Donald, and Mr. George Lansbury. Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. H. G. Wells, and Mr. G. K. Chesterton are actually seen m action " at the studio microphone. Mr. Shaw, patently enjoying his role of film star, is heard vehemently telling politicians that they have not yet found out the microphone, that it exposes insincerity and that half a glass of whisky makes a niau sound shockingly drunk " to listeners. There are fragments of a variety rehearsal, the first screen pictures of Mr. Henry Hall and his dance band in the studio, and of many of the 8.8.C. programme chiefs. At his own request no picture of Sir John Reith appears, but his voice is introduced anonymously during a reference to the Empire service. _ Secrets of the 8.8.C. noise effects are exposed in some comical shots, in which a watering-can figures, Mr. Eric Maschnwitz the variety director and Mr. Val Gielgud, the drama director, disclose themselves as two of the best actors in Broadcasting House. Drama, as when an S.O.S. reaches a trawler at sea, is interwoven with comedy, as when Cflapbam and Dwyer rehearse. Considered. however, as an exposition of the 8.8.C.'s work and a demonstration of how a broadcast is actually accomplished, the film lacks lucidity.