RADIO PLAYS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 9, 26 January 1937, Page 8

RADIO PLAYS

l— Press Associalion. i

Standard Disappointing, Judges bay COMPETITION RESULTS

(By Telesrapi

WELLINGTON, Jan. 25. The National Broadcasting Board's radio play competition has resulted as follows "Tbe Time Factor," William Holder, Auckland, 1. GNot Without Honour," Llalph Hogg, Wellington, 2. "A Door Opens," Alice J. Waldie, Lower Hu.tt, -3. Other prizes have been conceded as follow:— - "When the Twain Have Met," Charles H. Box, Dargaville; "A Dreamer Fasses," Mrs, Isobel AndrewSj Wellington; ''The Fourth Factor," J. Wilson Hogg, Wellington. Tlie judge's corament stated that the number of entries, nearly 400, was gratifying but the quality was disappointing. Very l'ew competitors had a clear idea of what^a radio play" sliotild be and the ability to put that idea into shape. The technique of radio drama in plot construction and dialogue had its own pafticular probloms and most of the entries did not show an adequate realisatiou of this. In general there was a marked lack of ori'ginality in ideas. A eommon weakness in construction was looseness in style. Many competitors wrote not radio plays but short stories in dialogue. Poverty of the eomedy eleI ment bore out the experience oi radio organisations everywhere that good comedy was difficult to fiud. Use niade by competitors of New Zealand material was disappointing but several of tliese entries showed merit.