THINGS TO COME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 490, 12 November 1948, Page 4

THINGS TO COME

A Run Through The Programmes

Chekhov the Humorist ANTON CHEKHOV started off as a * " comic writer. Later he perfected the type of story by which he is best known -the description of a mood, a state of mind, or a slice of life, written down without much attempt at plot. But the popularity of his later stories and. plays of atmosphere was so great that we are apt to forget Chekhov the humorist. The Swedish Match, a story about the serio-comic investigation of a "murder" in a small Russian town, is a good example of his light satirical mood, and it has been made into an amusing radio play by the English writer Roger Waddis. As produced by the BBC The Swedish Match provides plenty of laughs, with the parts of Tchubikov (the Examining Magistrate) and Dyukovsky (his assistant) expertly played by Laidman Browne and Peter Ustinov. It will be broadcast from 1YA at 7.53 p.m. on Monday, November 15. Liberty and J. S. Mill JHAT was probably John Stuart Mill’s greatest work in_ political philosophy was done as an advocate of liberty. In the treatise On Liberty he shows that political liberty alone is insufficient, that social tyranny may be _more grinding than legal tyranny. And -he showed consistently that any despot- / ism, however benevolent, must in fact, /cramp, and destroy the development of any people. Lord Russell, in a BBC talk on Mill and the idea of liberty, \ acknowledges that Mill's influence on him was profound. He did not know 'the great philosopher personally-Ber-trand Russell was not quite one year old when John Stuart Mill died--but Mill /was a family friend and he consented /to be Bertrand Russell’s godfather, in so far as this was possible without any religious ceremony. Lord Russell’s talk on Mill will be heard in the Famous _Men series from 4YZ at 9.15 p.m. on Tuesday, November 16. Golf Championships NEAT week is a big week for sport. For tennis enthusiasts the main ' events are the commentaries on the ex- | hibition tennis matches by Kramer, Riggs, Segura, and Pails (see page 21); for golfers there are the New Zealand championships at Dunedin. The golf will be covered with score-board results from the main National stations at 12.30 p.m, and 6.40 p.m. on each day of play | (from November 18 to November 27). . On days likely to provide the most in- | teresting play, commentaries will be broadcast from 4YA during the morning or afternoon, as follows: Afternoon commentaries on the open final on November 20; on the professional semifinals and finals on the afternoons of November 24 and 25; on the amateur semi-finals on the afternoon of November 26, and the amateur finals on the morning and afternoon of November 27, So it looks as if those who want to hear about both the tennis and the golf may have to do a bit of knob-twiddling on some days to keep right up te the minute with it all. °

Over the Reefs \ HEN he was here last year Robert Gibbings, the Irish author-and engraver, recorded two readings from his then unfinished book Over the Reefs. It was written after an 18 months’ stay in the Pacific Islands, where for long periods he lived with the natives themselves (even to the point of being made a high chief of one tribe) studying their habits and customs. From his long and

fascinating account of life amongst the blue lagoons and coral reefs he selected two entertaining extracts. The first tells how he went hunting the palolo (Samoan name for the worms which "emerge twice a year from crevices in the coral and wriggle to the surface where they are caught for the native cook-pots); the second describes his experiences with a young half-Samoan girl who wanted to elope with him to New Zealand; his visit to the Christmas dancing on Manihiki; and his surf-boat landing at one of the islands-literally over the reefs. The first of these readings (they were held for broadcast until after the book’s publication in England last month) will be heard from 2YA at 7.15 p.m. on Thursday, November 18. Captain Kettle [HE news that Captain Owen Kettle, master of the Kindly Light, is on the air again will revive memories for all but the youngest generations of listeners. In the early years of the century that truculent little Welshman with his

flaming red torpedo beard, his blistering oaths and fanatical sense of duty, was as famous a character of light fiction as any in a period that was rich in therm: Jj. Cut cliffe Hyne wrote the first Kettle

story half a century ago and he was still writing about the pugnacious captain as recently as the 1930’s. Six of Captain Kettle’s adventures have been adapted for radio by John Green, of the BBC. Green has served at sea and knows its ways; but to make sure that all his settings were authentic, he enlisted the help of Trinity House, the authority in Britain responsible for the control of pilotage and kindred matters, and Nancy Cutcliffe Hyne, daughter of Kettle’s creator, travelled to the BBC

from her Yorkshire home to advise on the radio treatment of the stories. Kettle is played by Julian Somers and the plays are produced by Charles Maxwell. The first episode in this serial will be heard from 2YZ at 8.30 p.m. on Thursday, November 18. Chadwick’s Challenge "THE days when housewives used to empty their slop-pails intd the street are not so long past. One of the pioneers in the battle for hygienic living conditions was Sir Edwin Chadwick, who realised that bad sanitation was the rain cause of the fevers that carried off . thousands of people every year in Victorian England. Before 1842 there were over 50,000 victims a year, mostly from the city slums, and Chadwick’s book on sanitation was a challenge to local bodies to put their houses in order. With a small body of experts he led the fight for healthy living conditions, and how he succeeded can be heard in the BBC programme The Fight Against Fevers-from 1YA at 2.0 p.m. on Sunday, November 21, Pride of Craftsmanship J/E Built a Church, produced in the Belfast studios of the BBC, won high praise from listeners and critics. Of it the London News Chronicle wrote, "The power of radio to take the listener out of himself and show him worlds behind the eyes of other men has rarely been used ‘so skilfully... . Who would have thought that a documentary about men building a church would be more refreshing than any ‘entertainment?’" The programme takes the architects and builders, the masons and carpenters, and through their voices shows the pride, the satisfaction, and the romance that. craftsmen find in a piece of work well and honestly done. The BBC production We Built a Church will be heard from Station 4YZ at 3.45 p.m. on Sunday, November 21.