SATURDAY DATE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 537, 7 October 1949, Page 21

SATURDAY DATE

7 SOLLOWERS of 2YA’s new half-hour light feature Saturday Night at Eight will be interested to hear that there are nine episodes yet to come. This (a local production) is a form of entertainment with a general appeal. At the same time it can» be said to offer balm, at an appropriate time and day of the week, to listeners whose Rugby team has disappointed them, or to those nursing a grudge against the horse that has taken its job too casually during the afternoon. The show opens. with "Cynics’ Corner," in which people, places and customs are made targets for good-natured banter, with intervals of song to illustrate the point. Next comes an interlude called "Impossible Happenings," a collection of odd ‘anecdotes such as the one about the bookmaker who really believed that the punter meant .to put his five pounds on a certain horse, and cheerfully paid out at five to one. "Topical Tour" takes some town named in a song, gives some historical data about the place and presents the song itself. Then the show introduces some curiosity currently reported in the daily papers. A recent episode~ included the evidence of a witness in an American

court of law during an accident case. He was certain that it was exactly half a minute after a bus passed him that he heard a crash. A lawyer twice checked his estimate of thirty seconds, found it correct, and gave up his cross-exam-ination in disgust. And only as he sat down did he notice that on the back

wall facing the witness was a_ large clock with an outsize in second hands. Obviously the illustrating song to round off thi8 story was "Time on My Hands." The compére of Saturday Night at Eight is John Huson, and guest artists appear m each episode. The musical interludes are by the Capital City Rhythm

Group, and Harry Wilkins and Bob Derham provide the character voices. Guest artists yet to be heard in Saturday Night at Eight include the vocalists Jean McPherson, Joan Vause, Marion Waite and John Hoskins, and the instrumentalists Jim Carter (guitar) and Ron Barshard and Ron Moug (accordions).