THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 358, 3 May 1946, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Campground’s Over Jordan HE name of the new play by John Gundry which 1YA will broadcast this Sunday, May 5, at 9.33 p.m., comes from an incident in it, when the heroine hears a sermon in a negro church in America. "Campground’s Over Jordan," which has been produced by the NBS, is about the troubles of a world-famous pianist who marries a pedantic, selfish professor of English, and goes with him to America. The husband, out of jealousy, makes her give up her public performances, but her playing at home eclipses him socially, and\ eventually his jealousy drives her out. When she finds that her husband has killed not only her ability to play, but also her ability to love anyone else, she goes back, and kills him. In Darkest Europe "CTX MEN IN DARKNESS" is the title of a programme in the real-life series They Lived to Tell the Tale, which Station 3ZR will broadcast at 8.15 p.m. on Thursday, May 9. Among "People in the Programmes" this week, our readers will find a.BBC photograph of Peter Madden, one of the actors who take part in this programme. It deals with life in German-occupied Europe. and opens with the last phase in the story of six grimy men, in torn and tattered clothing, forcing their way. through Brussels towards the BBC recording car. "Passport to Danger" ANOTHER new BBC serial, "Passport to Danger," is to start in Christchurch on Friday, May 10-on Station 3YL, at 8.30 p.m. It is short, as serials go (only six episodes), but it is packed with adventure and excitement. The picture on page 42 in this issue illustrates the first episode, which is subtitled "In Which the Young Lady Says ‘Yes’." ‘Linda West (played by Linden Travers) is involved in a motor smash, which opens the way to a whole series of adventures. Playing opposite her is Carl Bernard, and others of the cast are Norman Shelley, Edna Kaye, and Carleton Hobbs. Cupid and the Con Man "TT is with the utmost regret that I tell you that Louie is at the present moment serving a prison sentence, as one of the most experienced ‘con’ men that ever gave Scotland Yard trouble .. 2’ so begins a new. radio play by Peter Cheyney-‘"Pay-off for Cupid’~--which Station 4YA will broadcast at 2.0 p.m. on Sunday, May 12. The plot hinges on the adroit manoeuvres of the confidence trickster -LLouie-to say more "now. would be to spoil the fun of listening, and anyway it will be enough fer a lot of readers to know that the play is by the creator of Lemmy Caution, that most Runyonesque of all G-men. Comedy Thriller "()VER MY DEAD BODY," the play which 4YA will broadcast at 9.25 p.m. on Sunday, May 12, is a comedy thriller by Francis Durbridge, produced by the NBS. It opens with an actor exclaiming "Over my dead body!" and

refusing to do another play by an authoress who writes pot-boiler thrillers with routine plots, stock situations, deserted houses, absent-minded doctors, strange professors with accents, country policemen, nice young science teachers, and all the rest. The actor and his wife declare they are going to have a holiday from such things, and leave the authoress indignant. They go away and encounter an absent-minded doctor, a strange professor, a country policeman, a deserted house, and the rest, all according to type. They also,encounter a dead body, and one of the stock characters is the murderer. But you will have to listen in to find out which. Beverage Report E had intended to use the illustration which *accompanies this paragraph in a programme panel, but there wouldn’t be enough space there to'correct the interpretation which our artist, in a moment of abberration, has put

upon the talk "Some Everyday Beverages, and How to Prepare Them," which the A.C.E. will broadcast from 1YA on Monday, May 6, at 10.45 a.m., and from 3YA the same day at 2.30 pm. We can’t say that malt does not figure in the A.C.E. recipes, but we are certain that hops, worts, and the rest won’t. It is more likely that the talk will touch on more pressing problems-such as how to make two ounces of tea go where half a pound went before. New Ballet Music WILLIAM WALTON’S music for the ballet The Quest will be heard in the programme of Music by Contemporary Composers from 4YA on Sunday, May 12, beginning at 2.30 p.m. The Quest was first produced about two years ago, with choreography by Frederick Ashton. The story is based on Spenser’s Faerie Queen and tells of the struggles of St. George and Una against the powers of evil, and of their eventual triumph. One outstanding sequence, bgth in the music and in the ballet, is that of the dances of the Seven Deadly Sins which beset St. George. A Symphony in Song HE first broadcast in New Zealand of the Folk Song Symphony by the modern American composer Roy Harris will be heard from 1YA on Wednesday evening, May 8, when the Auckland Lyric Harmonists’ Choir conducted by Claude Laurie will present five of the

seven Movements of this unusual symphony. Two of the movements are for orchestra alone, the other five for voices and orchestra. The five to be performed by the Choir in the 1YA studio are based on popular tunes arranged to give a cursory folk history of America-the movements having such names as "The Girl I Left Behind Me," "Western Cowboy," "Negro Fantasy" and so on. We understand that in one movement the choir is required to clap hands for percussion effect. There may be other surprises in this work too-we await the broadcast from 1YA to find out. Eve of VE Tuesday, May 7, is the eve of the first anniversary of VE Day, the day of victory in the war in Europe. To mark this anniversary, Sir Patrick Duff, High Commissioner for the United Kingdom in New Zealand, will give a talk at 7.0 p.m. over Station 2YA, This‘li Slay You! AUGHTER, say the psycho boys, is a defence mechanism by which we triumph over the discomfitures and the misadventures which afflict other people. Perhaps that is what our artist had in mind when he produced the illustration which appears on page 38 of this issue. On the other hand, he may simply have been pointing out that humour has developed in quality since those early times, and that we would no longer consider it proper to jest about really serious matters — as Pindar did when he said "Water is best," or Caligula, when he made his horse a pro-consul. It would, however, be wrong to suggest that wit and humour in their more refined forms are modern in development and we have no doubt that when Professor T. D. Adams was preparing his readings on "The Wit and Humour of the Ancient Greeks and Romans" (to be heard from 4YA on May 10, at 9.29 p.m.) the richness of the field and not the quality of the crop made selection most difficult.