Ivor Novello and His Music

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 471, 2 July 1948, Page 15

Ivor Novello and His Music

HE undoubted brilliance and versa- ‘ tility of Noel Coward has had the effect of overshadowing the talents of other people only a little less brilliant in the same field.. Ivor Novello, for instance, does almost everything that Coward does-is composer, playwright, and actor. He is undoubtedly one of the foremost figures of the London stage, and if there were no Coward, there is no saying what his theatrical stature might be. In a series of six programmes just received from the BBC, Ivor Novello presents some of his most popular melodies assisted by the BBC Revue Orchestra «and Chorus. Frank Cantell conducts, andthe singers are all topliners on the light musical stage in London. Novello’s reminiscences about the shows from which the music is taken help to build up a picture of unbroken success that is rare in the theatre of these days. Ivor Novello’s output of one triumph after another has almost made theatregoers take his remarkable activities for grantéd. His big musical shows alone, of which he was author, composer, and leading actor, are enough to make his

name remembered, but they are only a fraction of his achievement. He has been writing songs and music since he was 15, and first became really

1914-18 war favourite "Keep the Home Fires Burning." He | has also scored a big personal success in . straight plays, some : of which he has written himself, but , he has found time to act in films too. He says he used to make £200 a week in films (because I famous with =

had the kind of face they liked), while for a big stage part he got only £15. His first stage play, The Rat, written for the actress Constance Collier, cost only £180 to produce. The expression "man of the theatre" might almost have been coined specially to fit him. Ivor Novello and his Music starts from 3YA at 7.56 p.m. on Tuesday, July 6, and from 4YA at 2.1 p.m. on Friday, | July 9.