THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 444, 26 December 1947, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Amazing NEW feature from 2YA _ which begins at 3.0 p.m. on Monday, December 29, is The Amazing Adventures of Ernest Bliss, a radio version of the E. Phillips Oppenheim story. It concerns a wealthy young man who becomes so fed up with life that he goes to his doctor to find out what is wrong. The doctor says that what he needs is to. get a job and work for his own living for a change. Being a man of some mettle despite his pampered upbringing, the young millionaire bets his doctor that he can walk out of the room with only five pounds in his pocket and another identity, and make his way in the world entirely on his own merits. From this point on his amazing adventures begin, and they continue throughout 26 fifteen-minute episodes of excitement and romance. ‘The predictable happy ending is not achieved without a great deal of struggle and various entanglements with crooks, jealous husbands and others-all in the -- Oppenheim manner. Tops in Preserving HE managing director of a London manufacturing firm has been granted permission (by the-British Government, as well as by his company) to spend £400 on a four weeks’ stay in the ‘United States to sell Americans a British invention-a woman’s hat that won’t blow off. His claim that even a blizzard will not lift the lid is interesting the older generation of Wellington women who, for reasons of dressiness or head protection, still wear hats. But there are lids and lids, and though many of our readers are no doubt thinking more about annual holidays than the home or the office, we venture to draw their attention to another A.C.E. talk in the Preserving series from 3YA on Monday, December 29, at 2.30 p.m. Its sub-title is "Self-Sealing Lids,’ and is aimed (we assume) at imparting the New Look to the 1948 jam cupboard. This talk will be heard the same day from 1YA at 10.45 am., 2YH at 10.0 am., and 4YZ at 9.30 am., and from 3ZR on December 31. From the West Indies F you like to hear the old Negro slave melodies-and some newer ones-sung in a warm baritone and with an easy and natural manner, then you'll enjoy Plantation Echoes, the BBC programme featuring Edric Connor, the West Indian baritore, with Charles Ernesco and his Sextet. Edric Connor was trained as an engineer in his native Trinidad, but after the war he was able to go to England and take up singing professionally. His fine voice and fresh, unspoiled manner have made him very popular there, and in this programme he sings a mixture of spirituals, folk songs, and "cal " which he describes as "unsophisticated songs, often based on some

topical event and set to an infectious, loosely-knit rhythm." The first number of Plantation Echoes will be heard from 2YA at 3.0 p.m. on Tuesday, December 30. Calling All Jacobites OW that the serial Paul Clifford (broadcast from 2YA in the For My Lady session) has come to an end, it will be replaced by another rollicking romance of adventures in 18th Century

Britain. This new feature, The White Cockade, is the story of James, the Old Pretender to the throne of England, the man behind the first Jacobite rebellion in 1715. The history of the Jacobites, culminating in the risings of 1715 and 1745, is part of the general history of England and Scotland, and there were many sympathisers with the cause in Ireland. The name was given in the first place to the adherents of James II, who was exiled in 1688 after William of Orange came to the throne. The son of this James, who would have been James III, is the hero of The White Cockade, and the adventures of his band of rebels make an enthralling story with at least some pretension to historical truth. The first episode of The White Cockade will be heard from 2YA at 10.40 a.m. this Saturday, December 27. Hogmanay an’ a’ That ACH of the various stations has adopted various ways of ringing in the New Year, and in the traditional manner many of the programmes have a distinct Scottish flavour. At 11.56 p.m. 1YA will play "Auld Lang Syne," and follow it at midnight with a relay from the Ferry Buildings of a description of Auckland’s revelling citizenry ushering in 1948. From 2YA listeners will hear a special Scottish programme at 11.30 p.m. A studio recital, "A Wee Drap o’ Scotch," will begin from 3YA at 11.15 p.m., while at 8.28 p.m. 4YA will present "The Mirror of our Time" (a review of the past 12 months’ broadcasting from that station), at 11.45p.m. a programme called "Ring Out the Old, Ring In the New," followed by "The Scotsman’s Celebration" at 12.15 am. The Carnival on the Napier Marine Parade will, as usual, be relayed by 2YH, starting at 11.30 p.m.; 3ZR will present at 11.15 p.m. "Party Parade"; 4YZ will give at 11.10 p.m. their "New Year’s Eve Party," and at 11.45 p.m. "The Passing of the Old Year," a studio recital by the Caledonian Pipe Band of Invercargill.

Station 2YD will at 9.30 p.m. take listeners on a radio trip to Edinburgh music halls for an all-star programme of Scottish variety, featuring Harry Gordon, Dave Willis ("My Wee Gas Mask’), and others of the same ilk. This programme is named "Hogmanay," which reminds us of the old song the children used to sing, Arise guid fowk and shak your feathers, But dinna think that we are beggars; We're all guid children cam oot tae play, Arise up and gie us oor Hogmanay. Linley of Bath N the latter part of the 18th Century when Bath was in its heyday as a centre of English culture, one of the mainstays of its social life was the musician Thomas Linley. The dramatized version of Linley’s life in the BBC series Men and Music opens with him conducting a singing lesson at his Bath residence, and in the succeeding scenes we are introduced to many of the celebrities of the day. Richard Sheridan was a constant visitor to his house, and later married his daughter Elizabeth, herself a famous soprano. Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, and Dr. Johnson himself must all have been known to the composer, who wrote the music for many productions, includ ing Tom Jones, The Duenna, and The Beggar's Opera. Linley is best known to-day as-a composer of ballad-opera, and in 1776 he succeeded David Garrick as part owner of the Drury Lane Theatre, where, when not conducting concerts at Bath he managed many oratorios. A posthumous collection of works by him and his son Thomas contains two volumes of songs, cantatas, madrigals and elegies. The BBC’s Linley programme will be heard from 2YA, at 8.25 p.m. on Thursday, January 1.