DRAMA

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 3, 5 January 1939, Page 15

DRAMA

The drama hours at the various N.B.S.' stations are well provided for during the next month or two, for the National Broadcasting Service has a number of plays of outstanding interest to broadcast very shortly. The list includes "Family Tree," by Philip Wade (one of the' foremost radio .dramatists in England), and adaptations of John Masefield's poetic > drama, "Philip the King." St. John Ervine's "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary," and the sixth episode of "Victoriana." These are all N.B.S. productions.

George Bernard Shaw's "The Dark Lady ot the Sonnets," produced by the National; Broadcasting Service, is to be presented from 4YA on Sunday, at 9.25 p.m. This play is not only a splendid-ly-written : piece but also has as its thesis a pTea'iJTor the establishment of a National Theatre in England. It is doubtful whether any other living dramatist today could have handled the- characters in "The Dark Lady of the Sonnets'^ with such skill as Shaw, does, and, in addition, he is a mastercraftsman of play construction, as listeners to this, example of bis work will discover. The play was recently broad-east-with considerable success by the 8.8.C., and it is good to see the N.B.S. presenting a play by one who is generally recognised as a leading dramatist of our times,

The drama hour from IYA, Auckland, on Monday night next includes episode ten of "The Exploits of the Black Moth." another melodrama in the series of old-time melodramas, "The Old Time The-Ayter," and episode eight of "John Halifax, Gentleman."

On Wednesday night next from 2YA, Wellington; will be heard episode fourteen of the N.B.S. production. of Edmund Barclay's serial romance of the Middle Ages, This episode 5s entitled "Trifles Make Perfection." Following this, at 9.32 p.m.. will be heard another instalment in the gripping serial "Soldier of Fortune."