A TRIO OF NEW SERIALS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 217, 20 August 1943, Page 9

A TRIO OF NEW SERIALS

Varied Entertainment For ZB _ Listeners HREE new features in a week is news to ZB serial listeners. And this is the news for the coming week. One of the new features is based on true stories, one is a spy drama, and the third is a mystery tale. Here is something about each of them:

" Eye-witness News " ‘THis is a programme of stories derived from the present war and based on real incidents-eye-witness reports by members of the Associated Press. Not only are the stories themselves thrilling, but the background of the whole is also as authentic as it can be at present. Each episode covers an actual war incident. You may. get a story from the defence of Bataan. You may get the

story of how Midway Island beat off Japanese attackers, or how paratroops landed in Tunisia. It cannot be exactly as it happened, but it will be as near the real thing as possible. Here are the headings for the first broadcasts this Friday (August 20), at 8.0 p.m.: 1ZB, "Terror in Tokio" (the story of the raid on Tokio); 2ZB, "Carlson’s Raiders"; 3ZB, "Peg for Attack"; 4ZB, "Isle of Destiny." The programmes for the second broadcast on Friday, August 27 are: 1ZB, "Women Also Fight"; 2ZB, "The Ghost Flies East"; 3ZB, "Hell Has a Sandy Beach"; 4ZB, "Mission at Midnight."

" Passport to Danger" NOTHER war serial, but quite a different one, is Passport to Danger. This should appeal to lovers of spy stories. The action begins in Warsaw in August, 1939, just before the outbreak of war; and the story has all the ingredients of a thriller-spies, beautiful foreigners, poison gas, secret plans and formulae, and a happy ending. The hero goes to an enemy country to get a. secret formula for poison gas. In due course he falls into the hands of the Gestapo and his girl, not the hot favourite but the runner-up, follows him straight into the jaws of death. The first episode of Passport to Danger may be heard from 2ZB on Friday, August 27, at 7.15 p.m., and it will start at the other stations (1ZB, 3ZB, 4ZB and 2ZA) on subsequent Fridays. The programme will be on the air at 7.15 p.m. on Fridays and at 8.15 on Saturday | evenings. " Forbidden Diary" HIS serial begins in an air of mystery. A woman writes in her diary, and outside the rain beats down. No, the setting isn’t Wellington in winter, but a little counry village, and some- where in the village there is a house that everyone shuns, a child who is lonely, and a story that everyone gossips about

What is it that makes the voice of the diarist so tragic and bitter, the house an object of suspicion, and the village so gossipy? The first episode will be broadcast from 2ZB on Thursday, August 26, and the serial will begin at other stations on succeeding Thursdays. At all stations this programme will play on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 2 p.m. Two Popular Americans IBBER McGEE and MOLLY have for long been popular figures in America. They are simple souls who have made America chuckle or weep week after week. In real life the couple have a colonial house in San Fernando Valley, plenty of money in the bank, a daughter aged 20 and a son aged 15. The story goes that Fibber and Molly were not at first a success on the air. So the show was "streamlined." One character was built up, another was shaved down. Sympathetic Molly became more sympathetic and unhandy Fibber still more unhandy, and then the show, which threatened to be a failure, became a success. Now they have arrived in New Zealand and you may decide whether you like them too. The first performance will be on Sunday, August 29, at 9 p.m. from 1ZB. Scouts’ Session COUTS should take note of a change in the time of the 2ZB Scouts’ session, which was formerly on the air at 5 p.m. on Thursdays. It is now on at 5 p.m. on Fridays. One-Act Play N August 21, 2ZA listeners may hear a dramatic one-act play, Shanghai, produced by Mrs. Elsa Lovell, who also plays the chief part. The Manawatu Repertory Society has existed for about 13 or 14 years and this is its first experiment in broadcasting.