"BLUEY" HITS THE AIR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 44, 26 April 1940, Page 47

"BLUEY" HITS THE AIR

N entirely new type of radio serial, "Bluey," is being released through the ZB stations. It is an Australian production and a good example of the high standard of radio production now being achieved in that country. " Bluey," the story of a typical Australian boy, his family and his friends, is the culmination of five years of effort by that well-known author and actor, Ellis Price. The serial contains a wide range of adventures, romance, humour, and pathos. Five years ago a considerable sum was spent on "Bluey," but Ellis Price was not satisfied that he had secured the cast he wanted. So he tried out hundreds of young artists until he found what he considered the perfect juvenile leads. "*Bluey’ himself is Rodney Jacobs, and all who hear him as ‘the lovable, mischievous, very human boy, will realise why I decided that he was one of the few juvenile personalities in Australia capable of creating the real Bluey," says Mr. Price. "But there is a little lady in this serial who is going to prove something entirely new to radio listeners. She is the very young and very talented actress Joyce Williamson, who portrays Anna- belle. Here we have an entirely distinct girl character, the perfect little golddigger. Bluey, Skeeter, and the others,

are continually under her imperious sway, and Miss Williamson’s extraordinary faculty of presenting her personality over the air has been a revelation to me and to all who have heard some of the transcriptions of the play." Ellis Price was determined that these talented youngsters should have the best support available, and for Bluey’s father (Henry Watson), he selected one of Australia’s best known radio personalities, that accomplished actor, Jack Lumsdaine. The other characters-the Rector; Romeo (the Italian philosopher who owns the local refreshment stall), Skeeter (Bluey’s loyal pal, who continually plays Dr. Watson to the hero’s Sherlock Holmes), and all the rest, are artists who make a convincing and very real background to the youngsters’ adventures. Ellis Price himself, besides directing the production, plays Romeo, "Bluey" is in no sense a "kids’ play." It is an intensely human picture of youngsters bent on pleasurable adventure, and grown-ups experiencing many moments of intense embarrassment and actual: woe, as all parents at one time or another do, Each episode has a distinct story, carrying the whole cast on to further adventures, and through all the laughable straightening out of the tangles the children cause, there is somewhere in the background that sense of relief, akin to tears, that all has ended for the best.