THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 387, 22 November 1946, Page 6

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through Trinder’s the Name ‘TOMMY TRINDER, the famous Cockney comedian, who will be heard in a recorded stage show from 4YA at 7.45 p.m. this Friday, November 22, was born in the London suburb Streatham and started his career as a boy vocalist by winning a competition at Collins’s Music Hall, Islington. The prize was a week’s engagement which resulted in a tour of the provinces with the show until his voice broke. He worked for one year in a butcher’s shop at Smithfield Market and then went back to the theatre in comedy and revue. At the age of 19 he was principal comedian with Archie Pitt at £15 a week. Tommy celebrated his 21st birthday in Johannesburg and subsequently did concert party work in England. While he was appearing at Brighton, Jack Hylton discovered him as a substitute for Bud Flanagan in the Palladium show "Life Begins at Qxford Circus." He has since been the star of many George Black revues including "Gangway," "Best Bib and Tucker," and "Happy and Glorious." He has made several films-Sailors Three, The Foreman Went to France, The Bells Go Down and Fiddlers Three.

Music from Rongotai OYS of Rongotai College, Wellington, will broadcast from 2YA at 9.30 p.m. on Thursday, November 28, a short programme of music. There are about 400 in the choir and they will sing nine items -not a programme specially prepared for a broadcast, but simply the work they would have done this year anyway, |under the direction of Todd McCaw, who will also conduct them when they go on the air. The choir includes "Men" (broken voices) .and "Boys" (unbroken voices) and the programme will be divided as follows:-Boys-‘Brother James’s Air," "Star Vicino," and "I Wish I Were." Men-"Fellowship Song," "Michael Finnegan," "Volga Boat Song." Men and Boys-"Finlandia," "Time, the Gipsy," Hymn, "Immortal, Invisible." The song "I Wish I Were" in the first group is that very delightful oddity from The Week-end Book which goes "I Wish I WERE a elephantTaphus, andecould PI€K off the coCOnuts with my nose, but Oh I am not, alas I cannot De a. ty. Oe

Hail and Farewell AVING made his farewells to large audiences from the screen, Mr. Chips, James Hilton’s famous scholastic character, will soon he heard from the ZB stations. He will replace the serial Random Harvest. We heard a portion of Good-bye, Mr. Chips, at ‘a pre-audition and found it well cast and following faithfully the doings of the master and the boys at Brookfield School. For the benefit of listeners who would probably write to us for the names of the players, we give them in advance. Mr. Chips is played by John Nugent Hayward, and the others are Minnie Love, George Willoughby, Alfred Bristow, H. Henden, Richard Halliday, Nigel Lovell, Leon Maybank, Molly Powell, Charles McCallum, Phillip Edgeley, Harvey Adame and Joan Lord. The adaptation for radio is by Richard Lane, the production by E. Mason Wood, and the whole show comes from the Macquarie Studios,

The Programmes Good-bye, Mr. Chips will start at 1ZB on Tuesday, November 26; at 2ZB on Tuesday, December 10; at 3ZB on ‘Tuesday, December 24; dnd at 4ZB on Tuesday, January 7. The listening time will be 10.30 a.m., and there are 12 episodes. Fires by Night HE name of the Lincoln College talk to be heard from 3YA at 7.15 p.m. on Thursday, November 28, will call up a memory for anyone who comes from Canterbury-"Should Wheat Straw Be Burned?-An Open Question." The subtitle suggests that the answer will not be one way or the other (unless H. Schapper, who is to give the talk, means to close the question), but anyone with a nostalgia for summer evenings on the Canterbury Plains may hope that straw fires will always be seen by night at harvest time there-the far ones seen from miles away, lighting up their discs of cloud, the near ones throwing dim light on. gorse hedge and ‘pine plantation, making gesturing little figures of men and women and their children. Film Music by Bliss HE way things are now, we stand a chance of hearing film music from

British films before we see the films themselves. William Walton’s music for Henry V was broadcast some months before the film was shown here, and now records have come of a piece written by Bliss for the film Men of Two Worlds which has not yet come here. It is called "Baraza" and is played by Eileen Joyce (piano) with the National Symphony Orchestra of England, and a male chorus, conducted by Muir Mathieson. Station 4YA will broadcast it at 8.50 p.m. on Friday, November 29. Men of Two Worlds is a story of modern minds pitted against witchcraft among African tribesmen. It took three years to make, and the ship carrying the director (Thorold Dickenson), the technicians, and their equipment to West Africa was sunk off the coast. The scene of the film is a remote spot in primitive Africa where faith in magic still survives. An African named Kisenga who has attained fame in London as a musician is invited by the District Commissioner to come back and help persuade his tribe to move from unhealthy land. A battle of wits takes place between, on one hand, the Com-

missioner, a white woman doctor, and Kisenga, and on the other hand the tribal witch-doctor. Victoria Serialised UNTIL Victoria became Queen of England she never slept a night away from her mother’s room, and she was not allowed to converse with any grownup person, friend, tutor, or servant, without her governess or the Duchess of Kent being present. So Victoria was 12 years old before a carefully-arranged history lesson revealed to her that she was to be queen. When she realised the destiny in store for her, her first words were, "I will be good." And there’s nothing amusing about that. Listeners who have enjoyed Richelieu, Cardinal or King? from Station 2YD at 7.33 p.m. on Sundays will hear, from December 1, a new serial Victoria, Queen of England. Our photograph on page 24 shows Neva Carr-Glynn, as Victoria, in this Hepworth production.