Look Before You Listen

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 497, 31 December 1948, Page 8

|Look Before You Listen

EEN programme followers are as unlikely to be separated from their current Listeners as punters from their racecards, but it occurred to me to wonder the other day whether we make as good use as we might of the People in the Programmes page, which after all is the nearest thing we’ve got to television. Would not our appreciation of the song cycle’ be heightened if, instead of fixing our eyes on the black cross beside the Programme item we allowed them to dwell on the features of the singer? Filmgoers who have seen too much of Durbin and Macdonald tonsils will not bemoan the fact that such representation is purely static, and listeners in general will be pleased to find there is often a positive correlation between comeliness and musical aptitude. When we reach the dramatic field the whole thing becomes a little more complicated, and I think it should be made quite clear to listeners whether we are seeing the star in propria persona or in her current role. It is quite obvious, for example, in the recent photograph of John Bushelle and Winnefred Greene (stars of Crossroads of Life) that both are taken on location, since Miss Greene wears a _hand-knitted afghan. On the same page, however, we have Miss Elizabeth Wing in a sophisticated tricorne, and when I start in listening to Stepmother I have no idea whether, hearing her as Anne Meredith, I should make her keep it on or take it off. And it might make all the difference.