THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 478, 20 August 1948, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Second Edinburgh Festival [EW people with any Scots blood in them will have forgotten that Sunday, August 22, marks the beginning of the International Festival‘of Music and Drama being held at Auld Reekie (Edinburgh to the Sassenach) for the second successive year. For those who can’t be there in the flesh, Station 4YA has arranged a special programme called To-day in Edinburgh which should make for some kind of spiritual rapport between inhabitants of the old capital and ‘its Antipodean namesake. The programme starts at 8.0 p.m., and it will tell listeners ‘all about the Festival and who will be there, while recordings of some of the music that will be played and sung during the three weeks of celebration will be broadcast. The Festival should be a huge success, for since last April nearly a quarter of a _ million: tickets have been sold to people from all parts of the world. Performances by top-flight orchestras, concert artists -and’ dramatic companies will be given, | and one of the outstanding dramatic features should be the performance, by | John Gielgud and a company of British players, of Euripides’ Medea.

~Where’s That Timber? ) A PETITION to Parliament about Waipoua Forest and recent university talks about forming a Dominion Forestry School give topicality to a dis- | cussion to be heard from 3YL this | Sunday, August 22, at 9.15 pm. The . subject is Forestry in the Common- | wealth, and the programme was recorded _ at an Empire Forestry Conference held | in England last summer, when five experts met in a BBC studio to talk over their problems. Although they are mainly concerned with the ailing condition of the world’s forest, they also have something to say about ways of increasing timber production to help overcome the present world housing shortage Among the speakers are D. Roy Cameron, Dominion Forester of Canada W. L. Taylor, Director of Forestry in Britain, S. A. Vahid of the India Forest Service, and G. J. Rodger, Director of Forestry in Australia, who presents New Zealand’s position as well. American Drama RAMA is tthe least exportable of the arts. A nation’s literature, music and cinema may reach the foreign market still obviously and accurately trademarked by their country of origin, but drama is most often damaged on the way. Consequently although we are tairly hep to most American cultural activities we are ignorant about American drama. An American play performed by New Zealanders is, properly speaking, an un-American activity. Of the three parties concerned in its pro-duction-author, actors, and audience\two are not American and the result is likely to be a synthesis of two cultures with the accent on the local one. Robert Kénnedy’s talk on "The Modern American Drama" in The History of the Theatre series, which will be broadcast from 4YA at 7.15 p.m. on Tuesday, August 24, will be an interesting

comment on one part of the American Way of Life with which we are not familiar. Even confirmed cinema addicts should find it instructive, since Hollywood is deeply indebted to Broadway, at least for its titles. " .. And There Was I, Hanging By My Teeth" T is our experience that mountaineers are no more truthful and much more annoying than fishermen. You are not expected to believe fish stories, you are supposed to cap them. But the enly thing you can do about climbing

stories 18S tO gasp politely or sneer obliquely. Hint too broadly that you don’t believe that the path was quite so perilous, or the view quite so "out of this world" and you lay yourself wide open for some-

one to say "Try it yourself." There is only one answer to that, and a friend of ours has the copyright. It is "I would-but for my affliction, you know." Nobody does know but nobody likes to ask. However since, _ sexequality notwithstanding, vanity about physical prowess is still predominantly a masculine vice, sceptics may listen to . Elsie K. Morton’s talk on Women Climbers without any mental reservations. The talk, which is one of the Stories of South Westland series, will be broadcast from 1YA at 10.40 a.m. on Friday, August 27. Richard Tauber Programme SOME of the last: recordings of Richard : Tauber’s voice were made some months before his death last January for the BBC session The Richard Tauber Programme. Seven programmes from this series will be broadcast here, starting from 4YA at 2.1 p.m. on Friday, August 27, and 3YA at 6 p.m. on Sunday, August 29, Music is supplied by the Melachrino Orchestra, and several guest artists are also heard, but the bulk of each programme is, of course, taken up by songs in the inimitab'e Tauber manner. In one of the programmes Richard Tauber conducts a portion of his own composition, the Sunshine suite. Guest artists include the violinists Henry Holst and Alfredo Campoli, singers Mimj Benzell, Irene Ambrus, and Olga Gwynne, and the oboist Leon Goossens. Brief Encounter HERE have been few films less spectacular in treatment than Brief Encounter, and few that have won such unstinted praise from critics and pub’ic, In this study of an unhappy love-affair between two ordinary, thoroughly likeable people Noel Coward created characters that lived. Laura, the wife of a decent but dull business man, and Alec, a doctor, meet in the refreshment room of a railway station. They fall in love, but recognise that the ties of everyday life are too strong to be flouted, so they agree to see no more of each other, That is the bare plot, but it is worked

out with great honesty and the most sensitive feelings. This radio version by the BBC was adapted by Maurice Horspool and produced by Rex Tucker. Laura and Alec are played by Thea Holme and Bryan Coleman. _ Brief Encounter. will be heard from 1YA at 9.33 p.m. om Sunday, August 29. Strange Homecoming N Johnny Comes Home, a BBC feature which will be broadcast from 3YA next Sunday, we are introduced to one of the strangest homecomings a returning serviceman could experience. Johnny is a soldier who has lost his speech and memory on the beaches of Normandy, and the play describes his

bewildered return and the efforts of his doctor and nurse to bring him back from the dead world of silence and forgetfulness. Although listeners are made aware of Johnny’s presence all through the play, his voice is never heard until right at the end. How the threads ‘of his forgotten life are gathered together and he is finally restored to health by a chance clue to his childhood surroundings makes a most moving and gripping story. Johnny Comes Home was written by Norah McNeill and produced by James Mageean. It will be heard from 3YA at 9.49 p.m. on Sunday, August 29.