THINGS TO COME A Run Through The Programmes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 34, 16 February 1940, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run

Through The Programmes

O realistie has been the series of broadcasts of dance music, presented under the title of "Night Club" by 2YD Wellington, that quite a number of people have been taken in. Several listeners have rung up 2YD to find out how the relay was accomplished — for, as you know if you have heard the feature, " Night Club" is supposed to be a relay of famous bands from American cabarets. Actually the bands are genuine, but the relay isn’t. It’s just a case of recorded items being cleverly compéred. However, so popular has this session become, that it is now opening at another station3YA Christchurch. Listen in there at 9.25 p.m. on Thursday, February 22. The 2YD time is Wednesday at 9.30 p.m. Destiny Is there a destiny which shapes our ends? That is ‘the question asked in Maxwell Dunn’s radio play, "There Are Three Sisters." The play traces the history of a small group of people involved in a big railway accident. Some die, some live. But why were

some granted escape from death, and others denied it? Dr. Hordern thinks the lives of these peopie are just the threads which Clotho spins, Lachesis weaves, and Atropos cuts. If you want to know who Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos were, either look up your Greek mythology, or, better still, listen in at 9.25 p.m. on Sunday, February 18, to 3YA, when this play will be presegted. The Low Countries Holland, or as it should properly be called, the Netherlands, has been much in the news in the last few weeks, mainly because of the fear that the country might be invaded by the Germans, but there are other reasons

why British people should take a keen interest in this part of the world. The Dutch have an Oversea empire of large extent and dense population, and they have made a great success of governing native races. We now have our own Dutch connection between this country and the Netherland East Indies. One of the stock illustrations used in the campaign for more population in- New Zealand is the fact that the island of Java with an area of less than half of New Zealand, has a population of over 40,000,000. There are to be two talks at 3YA on the Netherlands and the Netherlands Empire by J. Th. Schoon, who, after living in the East Indies for many years, has come to settle in New Zealand. Mr. Schoon is to talk on February 28 and March 6. Muscular Christian Henry Williams, whose memory has been honoured in the Centennial Celebrations, was what the Victorian Age came to call a muscular Christian. He had served in the Navy and seen fighting before he got the call for missionary service, and he brought to the mission field in New Zealand unusual strength of body and character, as well as strength of religious conviction. He was brave and tireless, and the kind of man well qualified to lead the Maoris in the arts of peace. His qualities of heart and head were to be of very great use in the spreading of Christianity and the preparation of New Zealand for the coming of British Government. He was one of the men who stood at the right hand of Hobson in the critical hours at Waitangi. Altogether, he was one of the biggest figures in our early history, and it is fitting that he should be included in the National Broadcasting Service series of talks on the leaders of the Churches. The talk at 2YA on Sunday afternoon next, February 18, is to be given by a member of the Williams family, Miss Sybil Williams. Ladders When my lady observes that the strands of her 9/11d hose have parted company, that is one sort of silken ladder. When an impatient impresario thrusts a detestable libretto on to a composer, that is another sort of "Silken Ladder" — or rather, that was. One day Rossini was presented with a libretto for an opera called "The Silken Ladder" or "The Silken Stairs." Finding the work execrable, he conceived the idea of writing a "crazy score for a crazy libretto,"

and the orchestra entered so whole-heartedly into the spirit of the joke that the first performance was drowned out by the howls of mirth from the audience. Whether, when the overture is presented at 8.30 p.m. on Sunday, February 18, from 3YA Christchurch, your reception of it will be an aneemic titter, a bull-like roar, or a stately silence, we cannot presume to guess; but don’t miss it. Shooed! When the radio sisters, Elsie and Doris Waters, were running a programme at the London Wood Green Empire Theatre two years ago, the heel came off one of the performer’s shoes, sailed into the auditorium, and hit the face of a spectator named Violet Fraser-Wallas. A few weeks ago she brought an action for damages against the Waters sisters in the King’s Bench Division. Lord Chief Justice Hewart found "No evidence of negligence on the part of the Misses Waters or the performer," and gave judgment in the defendants’ favour. It is clear that nothing will suppress Gert and Daisy; they are to be heard in two sketches at 8.24 p.m. on Satday, February 24, from 2YA Wellington, Mystery Mankind loves mystery. It has always been so — for both the detective story and the horror tale are ancient in origin. Magazines and newspapers thrive on enigmas, Our own modest puzzle page has proved extraordinarily popular; but readers who enjoy puzzles of another kind should welcome the talk, "Mystery Makers in Literature," to be given at 7.35 p.m. on Thursday, February 22, from 3YA Christchurch, P. H. Jones has prepared an interesting survey of the development of this type of literature from Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins and the muchimitated Conan Doyle to the present intellectual type of mystery stories, such as those of Dorothy Sayers. You Asked For It When enterprising 2YD officials thought of starting the feature "You Asked For It ---From Listeners to Listeners," they allotted it one hour. So popular did the show prove, however, that it was later necessary to take an hour and a-half each Saturday evening. Still more embryonic programme organisers and producers sent samples of their work, and much of this material was so good that further expansion of the programme became

essential. Now comes the news that "You Asked For It" is to occupy the whole of the 2YD concert programme from 7 to 10 p.m. on Saturday evenings. The first of these long sessions is scheduled for Saturday, February 17, and remember — if you don’t like it, you asked for it! Hume and His Thriller Over and above the laying of a foundation stone on Signal Hill, there is something in the programmes for this coming week to swell the pride of the South. That is the fact that the author of "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," which begins its career from 3YA on Thursday, lived for many years in Dunedin, For when Fergus Hume wrote his thriller about the murder of a

reveller in a hansom cab, he made history. His story was the first of its type. It was talked about and read everywhere. Hume came from England to Dunedin as a small boy, and was educated at Otago Boys’ High School and Otago University. He went to Melbourne in 1880, and wrote his story there; but perhaps Dunedin in the bad old days inspired it — Southerners may know. Listen to 3YA at 8.15 pm. on Thursday, February 22 for the first instalment of the radio version. Foundation Scottish blood will flow faster in Scottish veins, and many a Scottish heart will beat. with pride in Dunedin at 3.30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 21. The reason is not, we have just told the office-boy, that some philanthropist has offered five pounds to the Celt who can say Dundee, Perth, Aberdeen, Loch Lomond nine times without tripping up, but that the ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the Centennial Memorial on Signal Hill will be carried out at that time. Station 4YA will broadcast the event.