THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 152, 22 May 1942, Page 5

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

IRST produced about 1689 at a boarding-school for girls in Chelsea (a Chelsea pension, in. short), Henry Purcell’s grand opera Dido and Aeneas has been a favourite ever since, and will be presented for the nth time, but on this occasion in broadcast form, from 1YA next Sunday evening, May 24. The presentation should be particularly appropriate just now since it not only demonstrates that British music didn’t begin yesterday, but also draws attention, through the sad fate of the principals, to what can overtake those who lend a gullible ear to rumours, enemy propaganda, and Fifth Column work generally. But the opera is all that an opera should be as well, for it shows that not all the good things come in small purcells (oi!) and proves that though Henry may be as dead as a Dido his soul goes marching on. Uncovering the Past A dear old lady once said that she believed that one of the pleasures of Heaven would be a picture theatre in which she would see all the past and how it really happened. Interesting as these revelations might be, this would, we fear, be a risky stirring up of bygones and disturb the peaceful strumming of celestial harps. It is far safer to dip into a past in which Nero is not only black but dead, and which can only *s

yield up scandals about people who are, we hope, no longer concerned about them. An expedition into the past, a Victorian past, respectable and branded as suitable for school children, is cénducted by the NBS as part of the new programme of educational broadcasts. The first of the series will be heard on

Wednesday, May 27, at 1.30 p.m. " Adventures in History" are the adventures of a school child of to-day who is taken back into Victorian England. You can see her in the illustration, dressed in Victorian flounces, with her whiskery Victorian guide, peeping out from behind a stalwart soldier, What are they peeping at? Not you, certainly. We think it might be the Coranation procession of Queen Victoria. From Shire to Shire The American tourist of pre-war days who claimed to have "done Europe" over a long week-end (Saturday England, Sunday France, Monday the rest of Europe) would probably not approve of a coming NBS feature from 2YA on Sunday afternoons. Not only is the plan to spend a whole half-hdur in each county but also to visit in turn each shire (a much more historic and Robin Hood-ish word than county), and to see that Yorkshiremen are not Lancashire men, that Devon is as different from Cornwall as New Zealand is from Australia, and that it takes a good mixture from all the shires to produce that mythological figure, the Average Englishman. The tour begins with an upset mug of beér (clumsy fellows, these colonials!) and the friendship® resulting from this incident sets us on the first stage of the journey from London to Essex. Words That Live The great orators of history have left phrases as deathless as any in literature; and certainly there are very many Americans who can give, almost word for word, President Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. But who can recall the words spoken by Haile Selassie before the League of Nations when he indicted the dictator who was brutally dismembering his country; or -the text of J. M. Barrie’s address on "Courage"? Great orations of history, some familiar, some not so familiar, are the subject of a new Sunday evening programme over the Commercial stations, starting on

Sunday, May 24, at 7.0 p.m. They are delivered by R. A. Singer of Auckland, himself known widely as one of New Zealand’s most brilliant speakers. He has chosen a mixed bag of orations, ranging from Lincoln’s at Gettysburg to Heracles’ "Funeral Oration" and an address at the ‘tercentenary of the authorised version of the English Bible. Vive Lamour! We cannot help thinking that there is some deep spiritual conflict between the Dorothy Lamour who is scheduled to sing from 3YA next Tuesday evening and the Dorothy Lamour as seen-by the American serviceman — if we are to believe the psychic analysis of this latter Lamour offered to a wondering world some months ago by the New Yorker. Stated that organ of public enlightenment, "(She is) a beautiful but comprehensible creature who does not destroy a perfect situation by forming a complete sentence." On second thoughts, though, there may not be such a conflict

as We imagined. We must admit that we have not so far listened attentively enough to any of Miss Lamour’s songs to be able to say whether they embrace | complete sentences or not, because usually we have been too interested in the graceful evolutions of Miss Lamour’s pomum adami to worry about mere words. The 3YA_ broadcast, however, should enable us to correct this omission, since we shall be able to accord an attentive hearing to the words of her songs, undistracted by the glamour of her corporeal presence. Heigh-ho! Wide and Starry "Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie." said R. L. Stevenson, but that Miss Valerie Corliss -has no intention of letting even sleeping dogs lie is proclaimed by the full title of her next talk, " Little Adventures in Music: A Wide and Starry Studio." We can’t help feeling that it may have some connection with her first talk about the grand piano in Hyde Park. Perhaps Londoners were working night and day digging trenches in city parks, and Miss Corliss, agreeing with the BBC that one works better to music, decided to do her bit by playing in time with the trenchdiggers. Or perhaps she dragged the famous grand piano on to some

village green in rural England and thumped out "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square," or "The Lads in Navy Blue," for the simple unspoiled villagers to dance to round the rustic maypole, We wait with wide and starryeyed attention for Miss Corliss’s talk from 2YA _ next Tuesday morning, May 26. What Wilberforce Did Things are seldom what they seem, and the debunking of great events of the past is a favourite pastime of historians. To-day for example, we are told that Magna Charta was forced on King John by reactionary barons who wanted to go back to the Good Old Times; that the Crusades were fought to enrich the Italian cities; that the Wars of Religion were really wars between go-getter merchants and old-fashioned aristocrats. But there still stands out one disinterested act that will always be a lasting credit to the British Empire and the government that passed it-the Emancipation of Slaves Act, 1833. True, slavery was bound to go sooner or later, but that it went sooner was the work of William Wilberforce who, in the 1780’s dedicated his life to the liberation of slaves and who lived* long enough to hear on his deathbed that the Act of Emancipation had been passed. Listeners will hear the second talk on Wilberforce in 2YA’s "Cavalcade of Empire" series at 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 24.