THINGS TO COME A Run Through The Programmes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 52, 21 June 1940, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run

Through The Programmes

HOSE who like good travel talks — talks about places viewed with a seeing eye and presented with atmosphere — should not miss the series which Ngaio Marsh begins this week from 3YA Christchurch. Miss Marsh has a way of making places live. She sees the beauty in them and she always relates them to life. She can paint a scene vividly and present real characters. In this series she takes listeners to Europe and other places and comes back to the delights of London. After these three talks she will give two other talks bearing on her own success as a writer of detective fiction. The first will discuss the problems that confront such writers, and the second will give an account of an extraordinary evening which she spent in London as a guest of the Detection Club. Members of this queer club include Dorothy Sayers and other leading writers of detective fiction, and Miss Marsh had the distinction of watching these wellknown people disport themselves in a "presidential installation," A Novelist’s Life If you don’t believe us, ask any journalist (that is, any inkstained, beer-baptised, golden-hearted regular newspaperman) if he doesn’t think a novelist’s life is fine. When

he has finished answering 16 telephone calls at once, he will tell you, while rushing out the greatest story of the century for the late edition, complete with banner headings, eighteen point intro. and all, that you haven’t exaggerated, But if doubt lingers in your

mind, listen in to an interview with a novelist, at 7.30 p.m. on Friday, June 28, from 4YA Dunedin. Memoir Who was Hugh Stewart? His friends knew him as a distinguished, versatile, and extremely likable man. He was Professor of Classics for some years at Canterbury College, and when he died suddenly at sea a few years ago, he was Principal of Nottingham University, England. Stewart was a brilliant scholar, a frrst-rate soldier with the rank of Colonel, a mountaineer, and a capable administrator. He had a distinguished career in the last war, and wrote the official history of the New Zealand Division on the Western Front. A memoir of him was published in England recently, and one of the contributors to it was his old friend and colleague, Professor Arnold Wall. Professor Wall will give a talk on Hugh Stewart at 3 p.m. on Sunday, June 23, from 2YA Wellington. Hope Springs Eternal To look at the world impartially in this Year of Grace is enough to give anyone, Christian and pagan alike, a heart-aching sensation of futility. Yet hope must always spring anew, and even in the darkest time, men must cherish a few ideals, a few plans for the future. These considerations give point to a talk-the first of a series of three -which will be broadcast at 2.15 p.m. on Sunday, June 23, from 3YA Christchurch. "A Christian Looks at the World," is the title, with the sub-titles "The Spiritual Struggle in Germany: The Basis of Justice." The speaker will be the Rev. Nathaniel Micklem, D.D., Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, and what he has to say should be welcome to all who seek for some light on the muddle of the world. They Shall have Music The mighty gales may blow their most frenzied storm from Wellington’s guardian hills this week, but we prophesy with tranquillity that no Wellingtonian who has music in his soul will cower before the glowing embers. And why? Because something more

important even than the winds of heaven, to music-lovers, at any rate, will descend upon the city-the Centennial Music Festival, which, having run a highly successful course through the other three centres, is to arrive in the capital city for its big finale. The Wellington Festival received detailed attention in our last week’s issue, but may we remind you that before Saturday, June 29, arrives, Wellington will have had the musical time of its life. Such works as Gounod’s "Faust," Haydn’s "The Creation," and Tchaikovski’s Fifth Symphony, are outstand-ing-but for details, see the programmes. Argument Although most of The Listener's argumentative correspondents have lately been concentrating on swing, there have been moments when heights of vilification have been reached by anti-crooners. Well, we cannot repeat on this page some of the things crooners have been called, but one definition is that they are singers who ignore intervals in music and slide from one note to another much as dripping slides about the pan when the heat comes through. Instead of singing, for example, "Down de Lovers’ Lane," they produce some sound, almost defying phonetic transcription, like "Dahhhnnn d’lervers’ laaaaain." But that such light and tuneful numbers as the aforementioned can be sung in other presentable ways is proved by Paul Robeson, who will be heard in a bracket of two numbers (the other is "Lullaby," by Gambs), at 9.44 p.m. on Wednesday, June 26, from 1YA Auckland. New History for Old An attempt to teach New Zealand history from a new angle is to be made shortly in the Winter Course series of talks at 2YA. Did you ever wonder why your great grandfather came out to New Zealand in the very early days? It must have taken a good deal of resolution to make the break. Wé read in general terms about the work of the traders and the whalers and farmers and so on in the early days, but do we really know what their lives were like? Station 2YA intends to throw some light on these questions by presenting, in the form of discussion, first of all a picture of England in the ’thirties; then when this background is painted in, there will be talks about the life of various types of adventurers. The idea is to reconstruct the early and the middle period by showing how people really lived, and the whole series will conclude with a sort of balance sheet -of

achievement of what we have gained and what we have lost in one hundred years. The first talk will be on June 24. New Serial Like. Charles Dickens, Charles Reade wrote propagandist novels -- novels, that is, which were designed to draw attention to, and so remove, various small wrongs. "Hard Cash," a serialised version of which will begin at 8 p.m. on Thursday, June 27, from 1YA Auckland, is perhaps the best known

of Reade’s propagandist novels. Designed to expose the abuses prevailing in lunatic asylums, it met with vigorous protest on its first appearance. It concerns a certain Captain Dodd, who has amassed a small fortune; a rascally banker, who steals the money and to prevent his son marrying the Captain’s daughter has him put in an asylum where Captain Dodd is confined, having lost his reason through the banker’s wickedness and the loss of his savings. Strong meat, perhaps, but a serial which should make thrilling listening. They Must Be Raw Sad as it may seem to be to disillusion all the good pie-makers of New Zealand, apples and Vitamin C are separated in cooking. This is a blow, no doubt, but it is true, as the A.C.E. people intend to confirm in their talk which will be broadcast from 1YA at 3.30 p.m. and 3YA at 2.30 p.m. on Thursday, and from 2YA at 3 p.m, on Friday. Vitamin C is a very elusive fellow, they will tell listeners, and runs rapidly away at the first smell of fire or sight of a pot boiling. Once he’s gone, he’s hard to catch, except in the strange case of dried peas allowed to sprout. He doesn’t like winter, either, and when he runs from frost all kinds of unpleasantnesses atrive in his place. The title of the A.C.E. talk is "For Vitamin C-Eat Those Apples Raw," and that speaks for itself.