LOCAL TALENT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 401, 28 February 1947, Page 5

LOCAL TALENT

Sir,-I feel that there is a lamentable lack of New Zealand talent used in broadcasting-particularly from Commercial stations. Why is this? Nobody is ever going to convince me,that we have not got talent in New Zealand because I am not going to believe it-and I am not a New Zealander. I am a Cockney ° .with 35 years’ residence in this country. Recordings are being made continuously in New Zealand and the technical production of them is as good as any that I have heard which are imported from. overseas; but the artistic value of many of these New Zealand productions up till now has been extremely doubtful. I have little fault to find with recordings of singers and musicians; these

on the whole are excellent. But the scripts using the spoken word have almost without exception a _ distinctly American flavour. Even our announcers cannot, or will not, refrain from using purely American words and phrases. One has only to listen to Commercial stations for a short while to hear the words street-car, sidewalk, medsun (for medicine) being uttered again and again. Why? The English language has served us well for many a century, so why this persistent adoption of Americanese? If we mus? depart from good old English, then why not our own New Zealand version? After all it is only monkeys who imitate-and who wants to be a monkey? In broadcasting we have an excellent medium for moulding New Zealand standards and ideals; then why not let us get to work and build up something that will be expressive of New Zealand thought, and life? But that will take courage and daring on the part of those _ behind New Zealand broadcasting. I would like to see an immense campaign started to bring out the undoubted hidden talent that exists in this country. It will take money, yes, but we found plenty of that for war-why not find it for culture, our own New Zealand brand

of culture? Let us give the Andrews Sisters a rest-they need it! If the public taste in music has become so depraved that it demands the Andrews Sistersthen why not let us have our own? I am sure that any girl with a bad dose of tonsilitis could give an excellent rendering of Dinah Shore! However, if we are going to procure the best that our little country has. to offer, then we shall have to guard carefully against being parsimonious in the matter. After all, we spend fortunes on American "tripe," so why not divert.a goodly portion of that money into New Zealand channels? The campaign to be a success would of course have to be nation-wide, and would require Govern- ‘ ment support. By that I mean Parliamentary backing, both moral ‘and financial.

ALAN

STUART

‘Auckland).