The Light in Heart

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 545, 2 December 1949, Page 10

The Light in Heart

HE new series of Opinion Please from 1YA seems to me to have rather more body in it than the series heard earlier this year. Vernon Brown and G. Blake Palmer, both reliable discussers, remain from the original panel. M. K. Joseph is a decided acquisition, with his well-reasoned and quietly pointed comments, while Bryce Hart, although his characteristic style of wit is a little cramped before the microphone, can usually be relied on to produce some outrageous pun or quip should the discussion threaten to flag. The only dissatisfaction I have with the present programmes arises from a feeling that most of the panel, especially the chairman, A. R. D. Fairburn, take too seriously their policy of never becoming too serious. I realise that the few minutes allotted to each question make it difficult to strike down to fundamentals, that the impromptu nature of the session prevents anybody doing full justice to his own view and that the avoidance of genuinely controversial topics limits discussion. All the same, it seems to me that the tone of several questions submitted by listeners often suggests that the writer is seeking for a more serious answer than is attempted or given. After all it is only opinions which are being asked for, and I feel there is little danger that an occasional attempt to treat some topics in a less light-hearted and surface-skimming manner, would lead New Zealand listeners to regard (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) members of the panel as inspired oracles, as Joad and Huxley would appear to

have become in England.

J.C.

R.