When Tiredness Creeps In

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 535, 23 September 1949, Page 4

When Tiredness Creeps In

WRITER in The New Statesman and Nation spoke recently of the need "to lie fallow from time to time" as an indis--pensable form of occupational 'therapy. "Just about now,". he -went on, "one feels tempted to |prescribe it for broadcasting. It ‘is not that things are bad, nor that there is any noticeable fall below ‘the expected level, but rather that ‘tiredness somewhere has crept in...." Since.the writer was a radio critic, it may be fair to suggest that the tiredness was at least partly in himself. We do not have to be experts before we can suffer from too much listening, and for most of us the remedy is easily found. The critic, following, his unhappy trade, must push on with the search for something new; but the ordinary citizen is free at all times to revert to silence. We do not know how far this freedom -is enjoyed, though we suspect-after reading many letters on the sub-ject-that most listeners are voracious rather than selective. It may be true that selection is sometimes difficult, so that we_ sit broodingly and have desperate thoughts. Yet listening is like other appetites, in that it can be sharpened by abstinence. The interesting fact is that we do not want to abstain: we turn back to the radio, and are disappointed if it fails at any given moment to satisfy requirements which range across the arts on different levels of taste. Selective listeners, who come refreshed from silence, may See more clearly than other people where improvements could be ‘made in the programmes. But there is one difficulty, revealed indirectly by the writer in The New Statesman and Nation, which is inherent in the nature of broadcasting. The critic was stating a psychological principle when he referred to the need for fallow periods. Everyone who does creative work discovers sooner or : / ; / : /

later that it is impossible to stay continuously on the peaks of thought and action. There are times when the artist should sit in the sun and be idle, and if this is impossible he will have to struggle through a barren phase before the glow comes back to his work. Broadcasting is not an art, but its material is taken from music and words, and those who handle it are engaged in what is essentially a creative enterprise. Even if all these people were artists (which is obviously impossible) they would still fall sometimes into dullness. The service goes on, day after day; and there is no day in the week when the stations are closed. Entertainment is not its only function, though most people turn to it for pleasure rather than for instruction. And every large enterprise which is intended to instruct and amuse the public comes to a moment when its inventive resources seem to have been exhausted. The theatre declines into commercialism, and rises again when the old values are restored to the stage. There was a time, just before the arrival of the talkies, when people began to ask what was wrong with the cinema; and the same question is being asked again today. Radio has to fight for freshness against the pressure of daily usage. The critic who suggested the need for a fallow time was thinking’ of broadcasting in England, where programme officers already have opportunities for slow and careful planning which are beyond our reach in New Zealand. If "tiredness" can creep in, when great resources are available, it may not pe surprising if listeners are sometimes left unsatisfied in our own small country. Weaknesses cannot always be. excused by pointing to difficulties, but the difficulties have to be noticed before critics can know the field in which they are working, and be free to go usefully about their task. :