THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 362, 31 May 1946, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

"Merry-Go-Round" Y the Services, for the Services, and a hot favourite with listener's in or out of uniform-that’s a potted description of Merry-Go-Round, one of the BBC’s most popular variety shows, which is about to be heard from 2YA (starting at 8.33 p.m. on Monday, June 3). In the Navy edition you are introduced to the Ship’s Company of H.M.S. Waterlogged, Sinking in the Ooze. They’re anything but the Silent Service ‘on Waterlogged, as the commander is Sub-Lieutenant Eric ("Heart Throb") Barker, R.N.V.R. Eric was making London variety audiences laugh before he got into uniform, and he did the same for radfo audiences whenever his naval duties let him get anywhere near a microphone. His solemn appearance (as seen in People in the Programmes this issue) is completely misleading, for he can see the funny side of almost anything. Pearl Hackney, who is with him in the photograph, has been his wife these eight years, and they have a small daughter, Petronella, and a Tudor cottage in the country. For particulars of the khaki and light blue editions of Merry-Go-Round, keep an eye on this page. Modern Song-Cycles [LAST year, Station 2YA and some other stations broadcast performances by local musicians of the four bestknown song-cycles of Schubert and Schumann. Next week 2YA will begin a new series — this time, six song-cycles by modern British composers. The first one, to be heard at 8.28 p.m. on Tuesday, June 4, will be John Ireland’s "Five Sixteenth Century Poems," which will ‘be sung by Lex McDonald (baritone), with Edith Turner at the piano. The other cycles in the series will be Quilter’s "To Julia," sung by Roy Hill (tenor) with Bessie Pollard at the piano; Elgar’s "Sea Pictures" (Molly Atkinson, contralto, with Clement Howe); Quilter’s "Songs of Sorrow" (Merle Gamble, soprano, with Ormi Reid); Armstrong Gibbs’s "Old Wine in New Bottles" (Raymond Wentworth, bass), and Arthur Bliss’s "Seven American Poems" (Ruth Sell, mezzo-contralto). Flow Gently, Sweet Avon \V HAT with things as they are these days, there is something to be said for the man who can point to one little spot on the map of the world where things are going along nicely and quietly, and say with Alfred Domett, "No sound was heard of clashing wars; Peace brooded o’er the hushed domain." This honour we confer on Frank Hutchens, one time of Leeston, Canterbury, now a professor of the piano at Sydney Conservatorium, who (as everybody knows) was over here a while ago. Mr. Hutchens has composed a piece for orchestra called "River Avon-Christchurch Scene," which the 3YA orchestra, conducted by bis brother, Will Hutchens, will play at 8.24 p.m. on Wednesday, June 5, before going on to play some Arabesques,

and a thing about Central Asia. Arabia is restless, and something is going on in Central Asia, too, but we can all be grateful to Mr. Hutchens and Mr. Hutchens for drawing our attention to the continued existence of the placid Avon. To the Christchurch Domains Board we commend the quotation from Domett for a possible letter-head or gateway inscription, and to all who do not know the Avon’s qualities we commend Mr, Hutchen’s little composition, which we believe will be an agreeable musical picture of that slow-flowing drain. Another Detective Series NEW series of short detective plays by Mileson. Horton, produced and recorded by the BBC,-is to begin at Station 2YA at 10.30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 4. It is called Professor Burnside Investigates, and the first play in the series is "The Case of the Headless Lady." The illstratior we print here is

a Radio Times artist’s view of one episode in this story, and to anticipate inquiries we can say that the resemblance of the man on the right to C. Aubrey Smith seems to be accidental. Professor Burnside, the solver of these mystery problems, is an elderly professor of pathology who is drawn by the nature of his job into the tangles of the crime world. New Serial for 4YZ HERE will be eager listeners in the Campbell Islands, the Ross Dependency, and other southern points, when © Station 4YZ begins its new serial at 8.0" p.m. on Wednesday, June 5-a serial with a local interest in these parts. It is Lady of the Heather, written by Will Lawson. The story is woven round Marie Armand, a grand-daughter of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who was said to have been exiled with the Jacobites, and to have found her way from France to Campbell Island, Hobart, and New Zealand. Lady of the Heather was first broadcast from Station 2YD in 1944, but it is,entirely proper that it should have a turn on 4YZ, which we like to think ¢

is the southernmost broadcasting station in the world-unless they have one down by the Straits of Magellan. Co-op. IKE most New Zealanders, we'd heard something about the co-op movement in Britain, with its 9,000,000 members, and huge annual turnover, amounting to almost £350,000,000. But it came as a surprise to us to learn that co-operative societies were firmly entrenched in the United States, traditionally the land of rugged individualism. In the United States, the co-operatives have only been in existence for about thirty years, yet to-day they have almost three million members. Even the refining and marketing of oil, traditionally a big business preserve, has been invaded by the co-operative societies. Harold J. Simpson, who is prominent in the American Co-operative Movement, will tell the story of Co-operatives in the U.S.A. from 2YA on Thursday, June 6. His talk will be broadcast at 7.14 p.m. Was it Murder? — NEW play by Edward Harding, "Out of the Smoke," which has been produced by the NBS, will be broadcast by Station 4YA at 9.25 p.m. on Sunday, June 9. Its setting at first is a crowded railway"carriage; one of the doors opens, and a girl falls out. The question is, was it murder, or was it an accident? We have heard the story ourselves and after due deliberation have decided that it will be best if we say no more about the immediate consequences of the affair, but leave listeners to hear all about it for themselves.