THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 416, 13 June 1947, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

| A Kun Through the Programmes

| It’s a Caution | RUMPINGS-OFF, without even the one last indulgence of a one-way | ride, open up a new winter serial which _ starts ‘at Station 2ZB this Sunday, June | 15, at 10.0 p.m. From then on, for 12 | more weeks, lis:eners will, if they wish, |be able to follow Peter Cheyney’s | Lemuel Caution as, with the Federal | Bureau of Investigation, he gets on to the track of underworldly characters who have an avaricious eye on a shipment of gold which the U.S.A. is charitably sending to England. They will meet some queer folk, in New York night clubs and elsewhere, the first of whom, Willy the Goop, dies suddenly in a telephone booth from an overdose of bullets from a gun fitted with a silencer. "Whodunnit?" asks Mr. Caution, as well he might. The next character on the scene is Poison Ivy, an Italian night club singer, from whom the serial takes its name. And that, we think, will be enough to give readers an idea of the lines along which Poison Ivy will enteriain them just before bedtime. Definitive Statement T has been said (and perhaps with some justification) that those who like swing, should. But even in a cultural democracy that might be carrying things too far. In any case, it’s better to find out what swing is before condemning it-and that is precisely what 3ZR proposes to do in the special programme at 9.45 a.m. on Wednesday, June 18. Entitled "What is Swing?" the session will present the opinions of some famous artists on its history and significance. The Oxford Companion to Music defines swing as having "a simple harmonic basis, with a melodic thread superposed" and adds, "There is much that a cultured musician could enjoy in the music were it not that the jazz convention still demands (this is written in December, 1936), a great deal of deliberate out-of-tune playing and of sour or harsh tone." . © Astral Vengeance ORN in the mind of Victor Donald, an English radio playwright, was a crook so crooked that, to save his own skin, he had an innocent man sent to gaol. That’s been done before, but Mr. Donald’s character was more than somewhat steeped in nastiness. Hearing that his victim had served his term, and was coming out with all the determination of a deb., he had another shot at elimination. With the help of a girl friend, he lured the wronged man to an apartment, ungratefully shot the girl, and hoped the police would blunder in placing the blame. But the ex-prisoner had been killed outside the gaol gates that morning in a street accident. Was it, then, a ghost that had fallen for the lady? Listeners will find out if they tune in to 3YA at 8.0 p.m. on Thursday, June 19, to this NZBS production. Up inthe Morning QUR knowledge of the writings of Leigh Hunt and Professor Wilson is not extensive enough for us to know whether their views on early rising (which have been chosen by Professor

T. D. Adams for his readings from 4YA on Friday, June 20, at 9.33 p.m.) coincide with our own, but we'd be inclined to wager that Leigh Hunt (like Charles Lamb) was not insensitive to the comforts of bed at this season of the year, or enamoured of the discomforts incidental to getting the start of the majestic world at any other time.

And as for Professor Wilson, if this is indeed he who was better known as Christopher North, what we know of his rollicking nights suggests that he would be the last person to advocate an up-with-the-lark policy. Fgr ourselves, considering the inconveniences of getting up, and the inevitability of going back to bed sooner or later, we are inclined to agree with Dorothy ParkerSummer, winter, spring, or fall, I’m a fool to rise at, all. Good Taste in Building N the course of three talks to be heard shortly from 2YA, D. E. Barry Martin will discuss architecture, from the selection of the site to build on almost to the design of the front doorbell. His first, Architecture for the People, will explain the meaning of architecture as a science, and the timehonoured claim by architects that good architecture aims at three things-con-venience, health, and beauty. The second talk will deal, in some detail, with design and drawing to serve the best possible ends, communal and personal. And the third will be concerned with appreciation of good design and the lay-out of furniture. Mr. Martin deplores the "staring designs borrowed from cramped suburbia, jutting upwards rudely from beautiful farm gardens," and those which are "foisted on us by commercialisation, amateurism and ignorance." These talks should claim the attention of many listeners, for, after all, building @ home is the biggest thing the average man does in his whole lifetime. The first talk in the series will be heard at 7.15 p.m. on Friday, June 20, Lakeside Holiday ‘THE guide books tell us that Lake Waikaremoana ("Sea of Rippling Waters") is the ideal place for a holiday. And so it is, for the true fisherman who whips the shallow inshore water with the fly, and the barbarous boatman who trolls with an outboard. There is shortly to be a talk (the first of two) from Station 2YH by Judith Terry, entitled Waikaremoana Holiday. She will describe the lake and its beauties (not using, we are sure, the caregless "Waikaremona" pronunciation of many East Coasters) and possibly its fishing. She may even include the story of the dead shark once found in the

lake-a practical joke carried out with painstaking thoroughness a few years ago, and still laughed at on the Coast. This talk will be heard at 10.0 a.m, on June 19, Smiles and Shudders AT first glance there appears to be some relation between the two plays billed together in Mystery and Imagination which are to be heard from 2YN at 8.24 p.m. on Friday, June 20. And it is true that each one deals with sight, but there the resemblance ends. John Pudney’s The Boy Who Saw Fhrough is an amusing and fantastic little story of a boy who suddenly found he could see through walls-with the most embarrassing results for his family and friends. After all, if you can see the Vicar fishing about for his false teeth in the vestry, or your mother having a row with the cook in the kitchen, and you tell people what you see-well it doesn’t exactly make for peace in the home. Pudney gets all the fun possible out of this idea. The other play, Blind Man’s Buff, by H. R. Wakefield, is a macabre study of a man who is shut up in the dark in a haunted house. He cannot see a thing in, the darkness, but he cap hear and feel. . .. The author leaves it to your imagination to fill in the details. Both plays are produced by Felix Felton. John Pudney used to be on the staff of the BBC as a writer and producer. He is now a journalist, but still specialises in writing radio plays with a strong flavour of the fantastic. In recent years he’ has made a considerable name with his poems, many of them written about and for men of the R.A.F., in which he served during the war.