Corwin At Work

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 382, 18 October 1946, Page 10

Corwin At Work

[N Wellington M#. Corwin really got down to work, and we saw him at it -through soundproof glass windows, He made known his wants, and with the cooperation of the NZBS got hold of the kind of people he wanted to talk to, and then recorded his interviews, either with the small portable recording apparatus he carries everywhere with him, or on NZBS conventional recording discs. ‘We heard him talking to a schoolteacher (a former. prisoner-of-war), and a mother of five children. First, he spent half-an-hour or so in the recording studio with them, drawing them out for their ideas on various topics. He drew them out with some skill, as anyone could tell in spite of the soundproof glass; the conversation was pretty animated from time to time, and by no. means always limited to one voice. Then, when he had a little page of notes to work on, he was ready to record. The little group in .the controlroom alongside the studio heard the full version of one of a large number of interviews Corwin has handled in 16 countries, which will eventually be "edited and synthesised" (his own words), probably into a series of "One World" radio features, Next he went by car, with his portable recording-outfit (which can record for more than 30 minutes continuously on a small spool of round wire) to Rongotai College, and there talked to boys

in their early ‘teens. Afterwards, he told reporters, with self-evident sincerity, that the boys he had spoken to were the brightest for their age he had met anywhere in all his trip. "It may be New Zealand-I su it is-or it may, be just to-day’s luckbut those kids had the highest level of intelligence for their age of any I’ve talked to anywhere in the world-with the exception of Eton. Eton boys are smart." We asked him whether he was satisfied with working in a medium where his words were only heard once or perhaps twice. He had no hesitation in saying "No," but he went straight on to mention the compensations, His VE day programme, On a Note of Triumph, for instance, was repeated after five days in response to enormous demand and heard by 30 million listeners, "That’s more than the number there’d be in a lifetime of ordinary theatrical production." "Do you think all those 30,000,000 really hear you-really listen?" "I think so-I think the majority do, But of course the only really satisfactory medium for permanence is print, Some of my scripts have been reprinted. On a Note of Triumph sold 50,000 copiesthat’s an enormous number for a thing of that kind, But there you have the contrast; 50,000 and thirty million."