THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 94, 10 April 1941, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

FEW weeks ago we published a paragraph on this page about 2YA’s Saturday Night variety, and since then we have become such keen followers ourselves that we sometimes stay at heme from the pictures so as not to miss it. Much of the credit for its success is due to the compére, for a good compére makes all the difference between a show and a collection of items. Saturday Night Variety snaps along at a fast rate, there is a wide range of talent, and there is not too much of any one thing, As the old breakfast food advertisements used to say, try it once and you should be an addict for lifeor at least for as long as the session lasts. Martial Music It is well known that martial music affects certain animals, and indeed we once knew a horse which lay down and rolled whenever it heard "The British Grenadiers." Military bands are also supposed to have an observable effect on human beings; medical men, we once read, have noticed 4 quickening of the pulse and a slight. but distinct change in the chemical composition of the blood. The psychological effect, of course, is familiar to most people. It all helps to explain the remarkable popularity of brass and military bands these days. Not content with the usual liberal smattering of martial music on their programmes, the ZB Stations now have a special halfhour programme, "Famous Brass and

Military Bands," featuring such famous bands as the Coldstream Guards, ‘the Irish Guards, the Band of the Royal Air Force and the Welsh Guards, Included also are several well-known bands with distinct and unusual namesFoden’s Motor Works Band, and Wingate’s Temperance Band among them. "Famous Brass and Military Bands" is heard from 1ZB at 10 p.m. every Sunday; 2ZB, 8.15 a.m. every Sunday: 3ZB, 9.30 a.m. every Sunday; and 4ZB, 9.0 a.m, every Sunday. Talent on the Spot It seems that the quickest way to get a programme on the air over the ZB Stations is to join the station staff as a copywriter, typiste or receptionist. At any rate Station 4ZB has discovered a surprising amount of talent among members of the staff who do not broadcast in the course of their regular duties. Latest to blossom out is Rita Holmes, one of the station’s receptionists, who is a clever pianist and conducts "Rita’s Piano Session" every Monday afternoon at 4 p.m. She is her own compére, ani her repertoire varies from light classics to popular swing numbers. She is no stranger to entertaining, as for some years she was employed by Fuller’s Theatres. Wings to Come? , A talk by Professor T. D, J. Leech on the future of the aeroplane will be heard from 1YA on Thursday, April 17. If "future" means up to 1960 we may expect a moderately rosy picture to be drawn (presuming the war is over by then). Aeroplanes instead of tram-cars with festoons of straphangers depending from the wings. The late-comer who makes frantic leaps at the tail of the rising ‘plane. The colourful panorama ; which suburbia presents from the air, when every second roof is graced by a gleaming chromium and enamel model

with the family crest emblazoned: on the wings. The luxurious interior of the air-taxi which takes you anywhere in New Zealand for a penny a mile. But eighty years on? A note of pathos may creep into the speaker’s voice. The sky is loud with the buzz of helicopters. The Auckland-Bombay Rocket swoops past at 500 m.p.h. The inter-lunar strathoplane with its gay cargo of week-enders pauses in mid-air to pick up two more passengers. Right down in the almost pedestrian air levels, a disconsolate Hindu pushes in the joystick of his 1948

*plane, now weighed down beneath its freight of sacks and bottles. A shining blue and silver helicopter rises from the ground directly beneath the ‘plane. Wing touches propeller. " Can’t you look where you’re going?" roars the helicopter driver. "The sky’s no place for old crocks like that! Should have been in the ash-can long ago." A fanciful picture no doubt, but Professor Leech has certainly chosen an intriguing topic, It’s Off Again If dirty work at the racing stables at midnight, close finishes on the track, and plenty of horsey talk is your meat, then put your shirt on "The Dark Horse," the serial which recently gave followers of the sport from 1YA their

money’s worth ard which will now be given a run from 4YA. Funters should line up at 8.8 p.m. on Friday, April 18, for the start of the first episode. " The Dark Horse" is a Nat Gould old-time melodrama in spirit, with a dash of New South Wales sheep station life for gcod measure. Easter in Washington Just as Englishmen cry: "Oh, to be. in England now that April’s here," many Americans sigh to be in Washington for Easter-with _the Japanese cherry trees out in blossom all along the Potomac, and the fresh green of the trees along Washington’s magnificent vistas. On Easter Monday, children from all over the States crowd into the grounds of the White House with Easter eggs, and Mrs. Roosevelt comes out and makes a speech and the band plays and there is a holiday picnic spirit at the approach of spring. Dorothy Neal, a Dunedin librarian, was in Washington one Easter recently on a library research scholarship and from 4YO on Tuesday, April 15, she will speak on "A Washington Easter." Seeing Things Apparitions are of two kinds, glorious or grisly. The glorious apparition is the kind usually vouchsafed to the hero of the romantic novel, who. just happens to be strolling in the rose garden when his lady comes to snip off the head blossoms, or to the peasant whose nightlong watch is rewarded by the opening of the palace window and the appearance of his princess on the balcony. The grisly apparition is rather more prevalent in modern life, where the term is

used somewhat loosely for the unexpected appearance of mothers-in-law, petrol coupon-scroungers, and _ raffleticket sellers. But real grisliness apparently still lurks in graveyards and on lonely heaths. Not so long ago the Wellington police were called on to solve the ‘mystery of strange lights that flickered in Karori cemetery and the wraith-like shapes of mist picked out by passing headlights. They never solved it. And did you hear about the headless mastiff which-but we don’t know the end of that one. If, however, you want a classic apparition story listen to Owen Simmance’s reading of Daniel Defoe’s "The Apparition of One Mrs. Veal," from 3YA on Wednesday, April 16. Elgar the Imperialist Sir Edward Elgar was the first composer to bring England to the front rank in the field of orchestral music. He is, however, best known to the man in the street as the composer of " Land of Hope and Glory," which is played and sung more to-day than ever before. From 2YA on Sunday, April 13, the NBS will make a feature of the Imperial aspects of Elgar’s music, with selections illustrative of life under three sovereigns. It begins with the "Imperial March" written for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, then the Coronation Ode for Edward VII. in 1902 (wh'ch includes "Land of Hope and Glory"), and finally the "Crown of India" suite written for George V.’s Durbar of 1912.