TWO YOUNG PLAYWRIGHTS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 56, 19 July 1940, Page 19

TWO YOUNG PLAYWRIGHTS

Empire-Building In The Children’s Hour

HE radio would have failed miserably in one of its main functions if it did not encourage young artists. This is particularly true of the Children’s Hour. It is, after all, the children’s own session, and all boys and girls can submit suggestions or construct their own programmes. Two young Christchurch lads who have realised this and profited by it are Robert Newman and Alan de Malmanche, whose picture we publish. Under the names of "The Schoolboy Rovers," they are already known to numbers of Children’s Hour fans, not only in Christchurch but throughout the country. Their most recent effort was the production of a play, " Outpost of Empire," directed by A. A. Harrison, from 3YA on Wednesday, July 17. It is a

well-known fact that although radio plays do not depend on effects alone, these play an important part in production. For young people, especially, there is nothing quite so thrilling as hearing, crouched by the radio as the twilight deepens to night, the sound of everything from a low moan to a high explosive. So there was, in "Outpost of Empire," a liberal sprinkling of horses galloping, rifle shots, "calls to arms," gong booms, native chants, and even an astral voice. The play probably made many a young. heart swell with pride, for the " Rovers," not insensible to the times in which we live, chose as a theme the adventures of the British in India in the middle of last century. The principal characters were George, the drummer boy, and Tyrone (shades of Freddie Bartholomew!) who was the Colonel’s son and by way of being a cad until he rushed bravely to the rescue of a beleaguered garrison shouting out the battle cry of freedom. The dialogue in the play was bright -sometimes, as in all melodrama that

deserves the name, the colour was purple -and the situations, aided by the effects, must have given more than one youngster a spine-chilling. It is clear that the age through which we are passing is calling out youthful

Kiplings, and if the imagination and enterprise shown by the " Rovers" is continued, the Children’s Hour. should in future resound to further tales of high peril, honour bright, and far-fetched happenings in far-flung outposts.