MR. TOWERS OF LONDON

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 425, 15 August 1947, Page 6

MR. TOWERS OF LONDON

EFORE long, New Zealand listeners will be hearing the : broadcast productions of a rising new British transcription service whose letter-head bears the eye-catching title "Towers of London." Founder and head of this service is a quick-talking, enthusiastic young man who called on The Listener during a recent hurried visit to New Zealand. He is Harry Alan «Towers, already well known ‘to BBC audiences for the many programmes he has devised and produced. Mr. Towers, who comes of a theatrical family, is 26 years old and has been in radio since he was 14. He started in commercial _ broadcasting, wrote scripts during the war for Tommy Handley, George Formby, and many other popular favourites and ran a Forces radio network.

fils present project is to produce progetammes of "international interest" which will be equally entertaining. to audiences in all parts of the world, instead of only in the country in which they are made. To this end he has established overseas offices in Paris, New York, Toronto, Johannesburg and Sydney, and his productions are already being allotted time on the radio systems of several countries. Towers hopes there will be five shows a week running in Canada, for instance, by next winter. He is arranging for some shows to be recorded in French for the benefit of French-Canadian listeners. Noel Coward Programmes "Towers of London" has been happy ¢o far in its choice of artists. Noel Coward, to mention one whose plays, songs and voice are known the world over, has recorded 13 half-hour programmes’ for the concern, featuring mainly his songs, which he introduces himself, reminiscences over and (in the case of the principal ones) sings, supported by members of the companies. of Noel Coward stage shows. A series of Gracie Fields shows has also been transcribed, and the first series to be made by Austfalian artists features Chips Rafferty and Peter Finch in The Sundowner, episodes of Australian life. Secrets of Scotland Yard, with Clive Brook in the main role, occupies 52 half-hour programmes, and is, according to Mr. Towers, a good deal different from the ordinary crime serial on the air. In addition to these selections the concern has secured world radio rights of productions staged by the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and has done a séries of Irish plays, acted by the Abbey Theatre players. One of Mr. Towers’s most ambitious schemes is the reproduction for radio of the leading films turned out by the British cinema industry, under the heading London Playhouse. Extracts from the principal scenes are enacted by the complete original cast of the film and the story is held together by linking

dialogue spoken sometimes by one of the main characters, through whose eyes the action is presented to the listener. This use of a narrator usually makes it possible for the producer to condense even a long and eventful film story into a half-hour compass; in any case, the purpose of the series is rather to recali peak scenes than to re-enact the whole plot. Among the films already dealt with have been Brief Encounter, This Happy Breed, Blithe Spirit, Nicholas Nickleby, I Live in Grosvenor Square, I See a Dark Stranger, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and Stairway to Heaven. In the case of some of the older films where the original cast is for some reason not available, some use has been made of the actual sound-track; but this practice is now avoided-while the film is in production it is easy enough to make a radio version.