New Shows From the ZBs

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 653, 11 January 1952, Page 9

New Shows From the ZBs

V HEN, in our pleasantly unsuperstitious age, we want a label for the cause and effect of circumstance, we usually call it fate. Later we get round to calling it Fate, with a capital letter. And Fate, as everyone knows, is a heartless goddess, even though she has a hand in most things we do. She is always stepping in, willing things, bringing people together or dragging them apart. This is something of the idea behind the new ZB programme, Fate Walked Beside Me, scheduled for broadcast at 1.30 p.m. every Thursday: It has just started at 1ZB, and will have its first broadeast from 2ZB on January 17, from 3ZB on Januery 24, and 4ZB on January 31, A series of quarter-hour programmes, it déals with’ decisive Moments in the lives of various people, some fairly otdinary, others more picturesque characters. There is, for instance, the story of the doctor who felt he had to decide whether: to let a malformed child live or not; of the plain woman whose blind husband was about to see her for the first time; of Baron Ferrari, the stampcollector who needed one stamp.to make his collection perfect. In the way each acted there was an element of compulsion, this-has-to-be, or whatever you like to call it. Certainly, at the time there was only one way in which they could act. Needless to say, though, people don’t think very much about Fate when they’re actually making up their minds. They’re too much concerned with practical things. It’s only afterwards, when the lovers are holding hands, or the for-

lorn are seeking consolation, that she is thanked or cursed. BS us ae "| HE Kents are the latest to join the long line of serialised families who wear their hearts on their sleeves and tell their troubles to the radio audience. They spend their lives-as do most people of their kind and constitutiongetting themselves and each other into and out of trouble. Whether or not the trouble could have been avoided with a little common sense is a pointless question, for the Kents are no common family, as serial lovers will find if they listen to The House of Conflict when it begins from 3ZB on January 27 at 7.45 p/m. It will be heard from then on from the Christchurch station on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.