THINGS TO COME A Run Through The Programmes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 26, 22 December 1939, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run

Through The Programmes

VEN in 1832, it seems, freedom of speech meant you could say anything you liked as long as it was nothing you weren't allowed to say. Anyway, in that year, Victor Hugo’s play, "Le Roi s’Amuse" was presented in Paris but was _ instantly banned by the authorities because it showed the chief character, Francois I, King of France, in an unfortunate light. However, if the play itself did not get a good hearing it served as the foundation for Verdi’s great opera "Rigoletto." Even when Verdi’s opera was presented twenty years later in Italy, permission was at first refused until names and places where changed. The opera has lasted well, and listeners will hear this story of the hunchback jester at 8.30 on Sunday, December 24, from 1YA, Auckland. Three-Barrel Man ‘If the English squires of a hundred years ago were "three-bottle" men, Shakespeare’s Falstaff was a three-barrel man. He was never so contented as when, with Prince Hal, he quaffed sack, munched capon, and let the rich English oaths roll from his tongue. Although

he bragged about his vices with disarming shamelessness, he was the most engaging old rogue in our literature. Well, you can’t express all that in music, but you can capture and reproduce the spirit of the times, and that is what Elgar did in his symphonic study, "Falstaff." This work is featured from 2YA, Wellington, at 2 p.m. on Sunday, December 24,

The Snob Snubbed "Snooty" may not be in the dictionary, but it is an effective way of describing the state of mind to which some people bring themselves. That is the idea behind Max Afford’s little comedy, " Mr. Allchurch Comes to Stay," in which the snob is snubbed. Mrs. Emmaline Page thought Raymond Allchurch a respectable young man and an excellent match for her daughter when he came to stay in the suburban snobbery of the Pages. Crushing the other members of the family underfoot in her vicarious search for " social standing," she arranged a marriage. Later, the respectable Mr. Allchurch was revealed as a bird of different feather ... and the dénoument, while successfully spubbing the snob disclosed sterling qualities in the oppressed minorities. "Mr. Allchurch Comes to Stay" will be presented at 8.10 p.m. on Saturday, December 30, from 4YA, Dunedin. Dogs Listeners who think of dingoes as Australia’s typical dogs, should allow Mrs. A. M. Spence-Clark to correct them with the dogtalk in her series from 3YA at 7.40 p.m. on Friday, December 29. She will talk about the Blue Heeler, the Kelpie, the Sydney Silkie, and the Australian Terrier, a list which seems to us to provide irrefutable evidence that Bradman is not the only good thing that’s come out of the land of sharks and Ned Kelly. Pinafore If Gilbert and Sullivan had managed to write one opera for every Gilbert and Sullivan enthusiast, there would probably be as many favourite comic operas as there are enthusiasts, so we shan’t take the risk of saying that "H.ML.S. Pinafore" is the most popular of all their merry works. But it is merry, and bright, and light, and full of laughter. Perhaps no songs are heard more often in more bathrooms of a morning than the songs about the ruler of the Queen’s Navee, Little Buttercup, and the others. Station 2YA will broadcast "H.M.S. Pinafore" at 7 p.m. on Monday, December 25. Who’s Hooper? Is Hooper really Hooper, and is he a suitable match for the Innkeepers daughter? For Hooper was a swindler, and the man at the inn, who’s lost his memory and found the Innkeeper’s daughter instead, looks suspiciously like him. Sad to say, the Innkeeper does not hear of this until it’s almost too late, wmf

The story of this Gilbertian variety, to be broadcast by 1YA on Friday, December 29, at 8 p.m., comes from the book by Fred Thompson. For the BBC production Clifford Thomson wrote the lyrics with music by Howard Talbot and Ivor Novello. Nativity Play With centuries of tradition behind her to make novelty seem impossible.and innovation tactless, Dorothy Sayers has somehow contrived to avoid the many possible errors and achieve everything she set out to achieve when she turned to the job of writing a nativity play. The story of her decidedly novel departure from clever detective fiction to sacred drama was told in our last issue, but we must remind listeners that they should not miss "He That Should Come," from 2YA at 9.30 p.m. on Sunday, December 24. The time, by the way, has been altered by five minutes. Topsy-Turvy Opera is jazzed and The Lambeth Walk is treated as a classic by the Fol-de-Rols, a BBC concert party, who will broadcast (from a BBC recording) from 3YA at 8 p.m. on Friday, December 29. This bright variety show will also be heard in Southland from 4YZ at 9.30 pm. on Monday, December 25. Sisters Beatrice Harrison, who charmed nightingales to sing with her ’cello, and Carlotta Patti, who sang, some say, as well as the more famous Adelina, are among the people who supplied " Brains in the Family" for the new feature to start from 2YA at 3 p.m. on Sunday, December 24. The first of the series will interest itself in famous sisters; the second, in brothers, Besides the Pattis, both coloratura sopranos, and the Harrisons (’cello, violin, and piano) there will be the Terrys, Ellen and Kate. The compére of the item knows a man who'd heard both Pattis and vouched for Carlotta’s ability; but he leaves comparison of the abilities of Kate and Ellen Terry in the controversial air. Corlotta Patti was a cripple, so could not act in opera, Blind Pianist Some years ago, a blind student passed out through the portals of London’s Trinity College, sacred home of musical knowledge, He was Alec Templeton. Perhaps he had no great love for old masters of music, or perhaps he thought classical music would not pay. Anyway, he started in a different line. Now he is famous for his Concert Hall, radio, and

stage presentations of musical impressions, satirical sketches, improvisations on popular tunes. This nothing-if-not-versatile young man, who started his career with a terrible handicap but triumphed over it, will present 15 minutes of entertainment at 9.25 p.m. on Christmas Day from 2YA, Wellington. Old Barney Some people, like Somerset Maugham, for instance, are inclined to think that philanthropy is the final stage of vice, being taken up when all else has become stale and flat;

but those who hear W. Graeme-Holder’s play, "Unimportant People," will find it hard to agree, The author tells the story of Old Barney, a toy-vender, who has such compassion that by a generous action he saves a child’s life; and of Toby, the old man’s dog. This simple, yet pleasing little play will be presented at 2 p.m. on Monday, December 25, from 2YA, Wellington. Old London London is not, as any true-blue Englishman will tell you, what it was, Once Saint Martin-in-the-Fields really was in the fields. Once there were banks of wild primroses on the Thames’s shore where now grubby old tramp steamers wallow together amid the grime of factory smoke. The London of the Regency days, Dickens’s London, even the London of the years before 1914, is fast vanishing beneath chromium-plated offices. But the old city is preserved in song, and Vera Martin will present songs which may evoke vivid memories, from 2YA, Wellington, at 9.25 p.m. on Thursday, December 28,