THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 457, 25 March 1948, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Royal Progress : HE announcement that the King, th Queen, and Princess Margaret are to visit New Zealand and Australia early next year will give added interest to a BBC programme to be presented by 1YA at 4.0 p.m. this Sunday, March 28-Highlights of the South African Royal Tour. On the evening before the Royal Family reached Portsmouth on their return from South Africa, the BBC broadcast the highlights in its Light Programme. In this, listeners heard some of the recordings made during the tour with a linking natration. by Wynford Vaughan Thomas and John Snagge. Vaughan Thomas, one of the BBC commentators &%ho accompanied the Royal Family, returned to England ahead of H.M.S. Vanguard in one of the aircraft of the King’s Flight, so he was able to add his own reminiscences to the recordings of actual events. The programme which 1YA will broadcast was edited and produced by Michael Barsley. Fun for a Fiver ‘THOSE who have read and enjoyed A Bullet in the Ballet, Don’t Mr. Disraeli, and other comedies by Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon, should ertjoy Shorty and Goliath, an NZBS production (whose script was written by these éwo authors) which will be broadcast from 2YA at 8.0 p.m. on Wednesday, March 31. The play concerns two penniless characters living in the poorer pert of one of England’s big cities who are both in love with the same girl. To decide* who will win her, they are set a stiff test-to earn five pounds in a single night-and the plot revolves around their strenuous attempts to make the grade. All sorts of amusing and exciting adventures befall them in the course of their nocturnal endeavours, Shorty especially being a victim of mischance. He tries to knock out the masked boxer at a fun fair, loses (so he thinks) his last sixpence in a gambling hall, and gets mixed up in a midnight burglary. Who wins the girl? We won’t spoil it by revealing the last turn of the screw in this side-splitting comedy. Dictators’ Letters ON March 19, 2YA broadcast the BBC programme The Last Days of Hitler. Listeners who would like to hear what Hitler and Mussolini had -to say to each other on paper should listen in to 2YA at 8.0 p.m. on Friday, April 2, when, for nearly an hour, another BBC transcription The Secret Correspondence of Hitler and. Mussolini will be broadcast. It was arranged for the BBC by H. R. Trevor-Roper (who did much to solve the mystery: of Hitler’s death) and Terence Tiller, and was prodticed by Laurence Gilliam. The authors took their facts from two "books on the subject published recently in France, and from Ciano’s diary. Between them they give a picture of how the relationship between the dictators, and their characters, varied as the war progressed. One book is couched in the formal language of two tyrants who liked to think of themselves as swaying the destinies of the modern world, and the other, written

by a dispassionate, level-headed observer of events, reveals the real feelings behind all the bombast. Famous Frigates ROM Drake’s time until the present there have always been certain ships of the Royal Navy classified as frigates and during wars of the 18th and early 19th Century admirals were constantly calling upon the government of the day to provide them with a greater number of these "eyes of the Navy."

In view of this estimation of their value, it is not surprising that frigates played an important part in naval warfare and in a series of talks from 1YA, the Rev. G. A. Naylor has some diverting stories to tell of ships of this class involved in wars between 1778 and 1815. In his first talk, which will be heard at 7.50 p.m. on Monday, March 29, Mr. Naylor tells of The Saucy Arethusa and her fight against the heavier and bettermanned French frigate, La Belle Poule. In addition to naval records, the story of this sea uel is preserved for posterity in an old song, which Mr. Naylor quotes. The ballad contains mention of the "jovial crew" of the Arethusa, and this leads Mr. Naylor to pass some interesting observations on conditions in the Navy in those days in comparison with those under which landlubbers of the time were living. There are four talks in this series and they will be broadcast each Monday evening. Passive Resistance VERYBODY has heard of the part played by the French Underground during the war, but not so much ‘is known, about the quiet, unglamorous yet merciless fight that each French woman carried on in her own home during the German occupation. Something of this story will be told by Jearine Biddulph in a talk Passive Resistance to bq broadcast from 2YA at 7.15 p.m. on Friday, April 2. In houses where Germans were billeted, Mme. Biddulph tells. us, the lights would mysteriously fail, the hot water system would not work, and conversational sallies would be met with a monosyllable or an incomprehending stare’ If a woman boarded a tram and a German offered her his seat, she would not see him. If a German enquired the way, no one could direct him, nobody knew anything. And very quickly the Germans would get so depressed they wanted to go home. But the strain told on the women as-well, and children, encouraged in deceit and crime at an impressionable age, lost all moral sense. This is a sincere tale of unflinching heroism told in undramatic fashion. At the same

time on the following Friday Jeanne Biddulph will talk about the French blaek market. Poet and Slave-Trader ONLY two books will be ‘discussed by J. C. Reid in the book review session from 1YA at 7.15 p.m. on Wednesday, March 31, but the subject of both volumes is so colourful a character that the talk will not be dulled by this restriction. The ‘two books are Enid Starkie’s Arthur Rimbaud and Wallace Fowlie’s Rimbaud, the Myth of Childhcod and their subject is Jean Arthur Rimbaud, who is recognised as one of the greatest poets of the 19th Century despite the fact that he wrote for only four years in’ his ’teens to abandon literature for ever at 19 and becodme a slave-trader, gun-runner and _ political adventurer in .Abyssinia. The extraordinary genius and complex character of Rimbaud have led to diverse interpretations, but Mr. Reid considers Enid Starkie’s book, which is based on newlydiscovered docurhents, is the most complete study’in any language, while Wallace, Fowlie has given a profound interpretation linking Rimbaud with modern artists such as Picasso, Rilke and Gide. Bar-room Intrigue DDIE GRAVES has been convicted of the murder and robbery of an old woman. Is he guilty? Many of, his frjends at the corner pub (including of course his sweetheart Queenie) are convinced of his innocence, and they set out to try and prove their claim. This is the setting of the NZBS play Saloon Bar, which will be heard from 1YA at 9.33 p.m. on Sunday, April 4. By a process of bar-room politics and intrigue Eddie’s friends eventually succeed in bringing the real criminal to justice, ‘and the exciting way in which they do sO makes a first-class story. With its cunningly-contrived plot and an abundance of rich characterisation Saloon Bar is an absorbing play which should be well worth listening to. The script is by Marianne Helweg, adapted from the stage play by Frank Harvey.