SHE LOVES THE MICROPHONE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 353, 29 March 1946, Page 17

SHE LOVES THE MICROPHONE

Singer on Holiday from Australia

‘A’ ADOLINE KNIGHT, a former Aucklander who has had twenty years’ concentrated musical life in Australia, is nearing the end of a three months’ holiday with her sister Daphne Knight of Auckland and will give a studio recital from 1YA on the evening of April 7. Miss Knight went to Australia in 1926 and began broadcasting then when radio was more or less in its infancy. She told us, when she called at our Auckland office, that she had sung and taken part in musical and dramatic productions for both A and B class stations but mainly for the A stations 3AR and 3LO Melbourne. She spent ten years as a member of the permanent staff and five years touring in companies; the rest of the time she was a free-lance broadcaster. It didn’t take long to see that Miss Knight is an enthusiastic radio worker. We asked her what she likes doing best. "Oh, I like it all. I love the work. I suppose I like singing best, but I’m very fond of the dramatic work too." "And you’d rather sing to the microphone than to a visible audience?" "Yes certainly, much rather. The microphone is so friendly. With an audience there’s a strain and an effort but with the microphone I can feel that I'm singing specially to and for my friends. And think ‘of the boon to sick people and elderly people! You feel you can reach people in their homes and sing for the ones who would not be able to get to a concert. The magic has worn off now of course; but in the early days of radio, artists received thousands of letters from people who had to express their delight in this wonderful new form of entertainment." Miss Knight sang in New Zealand with Branscombe’s last company of "The Dandies" (known as "The Golden Troubadours") and went with them to Australia. She has taken part in musical comedies, operettas, opera, and radio plays. She said the particular dramatic

work she liked best was a weekly feature called "Near and Far" broadcast in Melbourne for more than a year. "It was a happy family affair," she said. "There were husband and wife and son and daughter and we played family dinners with simple sing-songs round the fire afterwards, Sometimes there would be a guest or two. Sometimes the son and daughter would do a duet of new stuff. Other times we’d thumb over old songs and mother and father would sing an old-time duet. We thoroughly enjoyed’ these broadcasts and they were very popular. It was just a happy mixture for all tne world like the chatter and music of an ordinary family at.the end of the day." Stories of singing for her supper on Sunday nights during tours led Miss Knight to tell us that she had one more point in ‘favour of radio. s "Singers aren’t a novelty any longer," she said, "and if you are invited out to supper and asked to sing you can take it as a compliment and not, as in the old days, a payment for your supper. ‘Come early and be sure to bring your music,’ they used to say. And there you were, working again on Sunday night, your only night off in the week." "Television will be Costly" How radio companies are to succeed with television is a puzzle to Miss Knight. "With radio you read over your script in preparation but you do not memorise it," she said. "If radio companies have to pay artists to memorise all their lines, surely television will be too costly. With a stage play the dressing and the work that goes into the production will last for weeks and months on end; but I don’t suppose they’ll keep the same play going for weeks on end in television and there'll be the expense of constantly changing dress and effects besides the work for players in memorising new works. Of course this is only my own idea, I’m not running a television studio and maybe the people who are have worked out all the difficulties," Miss Knight left us with the distinct impression that she at any rate was well satisfied with the microphone as it is.