THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 384, 1 November 1946, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Development of the Novel HAVE you ever given a thought to how all the millions of novels that are read every day had their beginning? Who were the earliest novelists, and how did this particular form of writing come into being? L. A. G. Strong has some interesting answers to these questions in his talk on Richardson and Fielding’ in the new BBC series, The Written Word, which begins at 2YH Napier, this Sunday, November 3, at 6.0 p.m, Neither ‘author set out consciously to write a novel, yet they are now recognised as two of the originators of this form of literature. Samuel Richardson, who lived and wrote in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, was a timid, respectable, fussy little man who reached the age of 50 without doing anything in the least remarkable. Then he was persuaded to write a series of letters telling people how to behave in different situations. The result was Pamela, or Virtue. Rewarded, one of the most successful novels in the English language. Henry Fielding, as unlike Richardson as could be, was a writer for the theatre, specialising in parodies of other men’s work. He set out to write ‘a parody of Richardson’s Pamela but, as he said afterwards, "It ran away from me. The characters came alive and went off on their own." And that is how Joseph Andrews came into being. Later programmes in this series will deal with Scott (written by Joseph Compton), Jane Austen (Sheila Kaye Smith), George Eliot and the Brontes (Roy Fuller), R. L. Stevenson (G. B. Stern), and Dickens and Thackeray (Bernard Darwin). The series will also be heard from other stations. Heavens Above HE topic for the "Science at Your Service" talk by Dr. Guy Harris, to be heard from 1YA at 8.25 p.m. on Monday, November 4, is "The Great Galaxy." We have not inquired, and do not know, whether Dr. Harris will pilot the space craft in which he has been exploring "Beyond the Stratosphere" into the Milky Way itself, but according to a recent copy of Time, things up there may be different now from what Dr. Harris may have taken them to be when he wrote his talk. Some Americans have been playing about with infra-red filters and photo-electric cells, and securing more information about the nucleus of the Galaxy, which has always been invisible. It is comparatively near, but dark cosmic clouds obscure the view, and it is estimated that less than a thousandth of the ordinary blue photographic light from the galaxy centre gets through the interstellar dust. Most galaxiés have tight star-clusters in them which may contain much of their mass. These nuclei fascinate astronomers, for it is probable that conditions exist there which exist nowhere else in the universe. Our own sun, by the way, is a component of The Milky Way. . The Pied Piper ALFORD DAVIES’S charming musical setting of Robert Browning’s poem, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" is to be broadcast by 2YA this Sunday,

November 3 (see programmes, last week’s issue) by the Eastbourne Lyric Singers, conducted by Malcolm Rickard. The composer described it as a "chamber cantata" and planned it "for the use of small choral societies or any group of 12 or more singers, S.A.T.B." It has three soloists, and narrator, a Pianist, and a clarinettist (who has to play his part out of sight if the work is done before an audience). The Mayor, the Piper, and the Lame Child also have solo passages. Here are the names of the solo performers for this Sunday: Narrator, Kenneth Macaulay, baritone; The Mayor, Kenneth Strong, bass; The Piper, Roy Hill, tenor; The Lame Child, Dulcie Rait, soprano; Clarinettist, Donald McKenzie; at the piano, Olive Gayford and Bessie Pollard. Scoop? ELSON, it should always be remembered, lies on the geographical centre of New Zealand-or something like that; there is a plaque on a hilltop which marks the spot. On Friday, November 8, at the critical hour of 9.48 p.m., Nelson will apparently be the, centre of the world. It would not be surprising, now that we have revealed

this, if correspondents from all corners of the globe were to hurry to Nelson by clipper, jet-plane, helicopter, or any available air transport, to share in the news scoop which Station 2YN expects to release at the time stated. A tense drama of vital interest to every human being upon this globe will then be enacted--stupendous, far-reaching, global, packed with human-interest: "The Big Four" (last episode). Don’t fail to tune in to this actuality broadcast of the News the World is Waiting For. (Upon completion of the relay, Station 2YN will Close Down. The rest of us might just as well do the same.) Science as Entertainment HE feature programme, "The Atom Explodes," is’ a remarkable feat of script writing by Nesta Pain for the BBC. In the space of 45 minutes she tells the story of research into RadioActivity, from its discovery by Becquerel at the end of last century up to its newest development, the Atomic Bomb. Not the least of her problems has been to make clear to the lay mind. what tadio-activity and atomic energy areand to paint her picture without confusing the listener with a mass of

scientific detail. The result; to judge from the reception of the feature when it was first broadcast in Britain, has been completely successful. Nesta Pain has made a speciality of this type of scientific programme, yet she has never studied science (she took an honours degree in classics and did post-graduate work on comparative philology). The fact that she is not a scientist by profession is probably the secret of-her success in this medium. She approaches her subject from the point of view of the average, non-scientific listener. Other subjects that she has dramatised for the microphone are the war against Sleeping Sickness, the Tsetse Fly, and Yellow Fever. She has also written scripts about X-Rays and Microbes. "The Atom Explodes" will be broadcast from 2YH at 8.18 p.m. on Friday, November 8 Petrouchka NEW recording has been made in England of Stravinsky’s most popular ballet music, Petrouchka, and it has already been heard from some stations, West Coast and Southland listeners may hear it next week-from 3ZR at 9,20 p-m. on Monday, November 4, and from 4YZ at 8.0 p.m. on Wednesday, November 6. It is played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ernest Ansermet, a Swiss conductor who has a big reputation in Europe as a conductor of Stravinsky’s music. Ansermet toured widely with Diaghileff’s ballet, and therefore knows the work as it is meant to be known-in the form of a ballet. His recording of Petrouchka was striking enough to cause a stir in England when it was released, and is regarded not only as marking a sensational advance in recording technique, but also as the best recorded version from the interpretative point of view.