A Holiday Frolic from the ZBs

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 651, 21 December 1951, Page 6

A Holiday Frolic from the ZBs

2 ane will be plenty of fun this Christmas for ZB listeners, but pride of place in the programmes has been kept for "You’re Welcome," an hour-long variety show written, produced and recorded in Auckland.

VER the past few years it has been the cheerful custom of the Commercial stations to liven up their Christmas Day broadcasts with the best home-grown entertainment. Last year they provided a pantomime, Dick Whittington, peopled with frolicking announcers, clowning scriptwriters, and an orchestra that did unaccountable things -and Whittington will be returning @gain this holiday season to some of the YZ stations. But for Christmas, 1951-and for the sake of variety-the ZBs have turned their hand to a_ fast-moving Variety Show. You’re Welccme, as this year’s frolic has been called, will last for a full hour and will be heard from the four ZB stations and 2ZA at 9.0 p.m. on December 25. ~~ Like Dick Whittington, it is an entirely New Zealand-made production; written by Arthur E. Jones, produced by William Austin, with music under the direction of Oswald Cheesman, and recorded in 1ZB’s Radio Theatre. But though it is a local show, it will be surprising if listeners do not catch echoes of other and older radio favourites. One echo seems to come all the way from the dear old ITMA days, and you can take it from somewhere else in the script that the good example set for radio writers by Messrs. Muir and Norden has been followed to advantage. New Zealand Tadio, too, doesn’t escape burlesquing--one of ‘the interludes will be about "Meeting Places and Going People-films and film-stars take a pummelling, and even Mr. Coward does not escape parody. * To give the funny men time to regain ‘breath, and to provide the variety that

is the spice of a good show there will be Oswald Cheesman and his Orchestra, the George Hopkins Clarinet Quartet, the Duplicats, Pat McMinn, Stewart Harvey, and John Thomson and Nancy Harrie at the piano. The comedy team contains equally familiar names-Bill Austin, Fred Pollitt (who was the Dame in last year’s pantomime), Valerie Spencer, Peter Gwynne, and Pat Smyth, You’re Welcome should, in fact, make welcome and relaxing listening on Christmas Day. CARTOONS AND PANTOMIMES HOUGH the Variety Revue is the ZB set-piece for Christmas Day, the Commercial stations have planned programmes that should help to keep everyone happy from breakfast to bedtime. Carols and Christmas parties for young and old who are unlucky enough to be in hospital will be heard from all ZB tations and 2ZA in the forenoon or early afternoon, with a variety of other special features. When the Children’s Hour comes round, each station will present one of the new BBC radio cartoons. The story of Sammy, the. lonely (and lazy) grey squirrel who stored no nuts but managed to survive, will be told to young 4ZB and 2ZA listeners, while Wellington children will hear The Operatic Cat, which explains why all kittens are warned not to sing in tune. More for adolescents is The Pied Piper (from 3ZB). This is a version of the old German legend, with a happy ending in which little Hans is cured of his lameness and leads the other children home again. From 1ZB there will be the story of that little spiv, The Ant Who Didn’t Like Work. Grown-ups will have a turn again at 6.30 p.m. with the new Christmas Carol

(see opposite page), and this will be followed at 7.15 with Cinderella, a pantomime for the family. This will be a BBC show from all but 4ZB, where the station is producing its own show, from its own script, with its own players. A special Christmas edition of Take It From Here-a must session for

grown-ups-follows the pantomime at the four ZB stations, and at 8.45 there’s a quarter-hour with Murdoch and Horne, who exchange presents, go carolling and meet a number of people, all of whom turn out to be Maurice Denham. Then comes You’re Welcome, and to close the day each station has a BBC drama. And so, at 10.30, to bed!