ENTERTAINMENT FOR THE J FORCE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 363, 7 June 1946, Page 19

ENTERTAINMENT FOR THE J FORCE

NBS-AEWS Unit for Hiroshima

WO men have left New Zealand to represent the National Broadcasting Service and the AEWS with the J Force. They will work on similar lines to the broadcasting unit in the Middle East, with the exception that there will be no battle actions to record. Theirs will be a purely entertainment job. They are Ulric del’H. Williams, who will be the producer, and Linden Martin, technician. Before he left Mr. Williams told The Listener that he greatly favoured gramophone. appreciation groups. With a library of recorded music from the NBS

and the AEWS, to choose from, he proposes to give the troops in Japan every opportunity to hear the classics. But that will be only a part of his work. "With the Boys Overseas" sessions, and greetings will probably be included and he will also produce revues, concerts and plays. With experience of similar work for two-and-a-half years in Fiji for the AEWS, Mr. Williams hopes to establish a "little theatre" in the Hiroshima area. He was unable to say what the first form of entertainment would be.until he reached Japan, but he thought a bright revue would be a suitable curtain-raiser. Then he would probably move on to three-act plays. There is talent in any company of soldiers, he says, but it sometimes takes a good deal of finding. "The men generally want to see how things are going. If the show is good, they are keen to join in. When a man says:) T’ve got a cobber with a good voice,’ it is quite on the cards that he is telling the truth. That’s the way we

dig up talent. And play-readings are another good medium for finding out what stage possibilities there are." Recordings Will Be Made An orchestra and a dance band were essential, but he had found good gramophone recordings of classics popular, Mr. Williams said. One of his ways of presenting such programmes would be to hand out catalogues and let the men make up their own lists of request numbers. Experts on various subjects would be asked to give talks, and, as it was a Commonwealth Force, there would be an almost international flavour to sporting events. For instance, in Rugby, England might play New Zealand. Possibly

commentaries on games would be recorded. And it was intended also to make recordings of talks on the general lite of J Force. These would be sent to New Zealand by air-mail for rebroadcasting, if suitable. Before the war Mr. Williams was an active member of Wellington and Napier repertory societies, and he has played a part in university extravaganzas. He was one of the organisers, and chairman of the committee, of the Napier Fun Session, which raised £8,000 for the National Patriotic Fund. Mr. Martin, the technician, explained that his apparatus would include a public address system, portable recording equipment, and an electrical reproduction unit for gramophone records. He has been a member of the NBS staff for seven years, at 2YH, Napier, but has been in the Army for the last year. The address systeth, he said, was similar to that used on the bond waggon which toured New Zealand during the war, and the recording unit the same as the one used in the Middle East.