BBC ACTOR, NZBS PLAY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 404, 21 March 1947, Page 20

BBC ACTOR, NZBS PLAY

Background to "Bomber Over Marshmoor"

NEW voice soon to be heard in NZBS productions is that of Dermot Cathie, formerly of the BBC and the London stage. Mr. Cathie has earned his living as an actor and producer for several years and he has come to New Zealand with the idea of settling here. His introduction to the NZBS was by .

way of a letter from Val Gielgud, director of the BBC’s drama department, but it was his ‘wife who brought him here. Twelve years or so ago, Enid Nathan, of Palmerston North, went to London to take up stage work, and later she became Mrs. Cathie. She wanted to return to see her people, so her husband came too. ' Plays and Documentaries Dermot Cathie told us that for the last three years he has been appearing in plays~-and documentary features for the BBC. One of these was Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage, in which he played the leading role of the Rev. Mark Robarts. But his voice is already familiar to New Zealand tisteners through the BBC serial Bleak House, heard from Station 2YD at 9.15 p.m. on Sundays. He plays the role of Dr. Allan Woodcourt: He was also in the BBC documentaries The Harbour Called Mulberry and Radar. But he is mainly interested in production. He produced Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler at the Mercury and Westminster Theatres, London, and has taught at the Elsie Fogerty School (London) to which many New Zealand stage. aspirnts have gone. His present work with he NZBS is in recorded plays and short stories. Later he will be seen and heard as narrator with the National Symphony Orchestra when it presents Prokofieff’s Peter and the Wolf. Lately, under Bernard Beeby’s direction, Mr. Cathie has been busy with an NZBS production of Bomber Over Marshmoor (by a Wellington writer, Brian Snowdon) which will be heard from 2YA at 8.0 p.m. on Wednesday,

March 26. In this he takes a dual role, The play, which tied for first place with John Gundry’s A Certain Wilderness in . last year’s NZBS radio play competition, uses a spiritualistic theme’as dramatic entertainment. Though authors and playwrights are often unable to recall, specifically, the genesis of their plots-they frequently arise from unrelated incidents -- we asked Mr. Snowdon if he could recall eee

how he hit on the idea of a man talking to his own spirit and not recognising the answering voice. He, too, found that hard. All he could say was that he thought up the play when he was engaged on a job so monotonous. that his mind was free to wander into fantasy. He also wrote Young Rex Harrison, heard from 2YA about four years ago, not knowing when he chose the title that there was a film star of the same name. This play was based on a coalmining incident related to him by friends. "I’ve had writer’s itch since I was about 16," he said. "I used to turn out a short story about once a week, bombarding the magazines, and I suppose my weekly earnings averaged about 3d." Helped by a friend he started his writing career with a hand-printed publication which he called the "Brighton Magazine" and which ran for three years, the friend doing all the illustrations. At Wellington College he contributed to The Tihe, later editing it, and he also edited the Victoria University College magazine Spike, designing a cover which was used for two years. Now he is on the staff of a Wellington newspaper.