THINGS TO COME
ITERARY listeners will hear in the Book Shop session this week Allona Priestley’s review of "The Emperor Constantine," a religious prose drama by Dorot¥ Sayers. Station 1YA will broadcast the programme at 8.0 p.m. on Wednesday, February 13; 4YC at 7.30 p.m. on Thursday, February 14; and 1YZ at 5.0 p.m. on Sunday, February 17. The play was written for the Colchester Festival last year and was her fourth commissioned project for special festivals. Mrs. Priestley’s talk deals with the experimental nature of the work, showing how the author tried to solve certain dramatic problems. Dorothy Sayers’s drama is, as Mrs. Priestley points out, "deeply rooted in history, having the scope and powet of a Shakespearean chronicle history." With 97 speaking parts "The Emperor Constantine" does not offer itself for facile reproduction in New Zealand, but as a readable work should be of great interest to those concerned with the subject. The remainder of the Book Shop programme is taken up with two talks, "The Bible as Literature," by Professor G. A. Knight, and "Books on the Cinema," by Isobel Andrews. In the Book Shop session at the YA and YZ stations during the following fortnight is included Ken Scott's review of "The New Society," by the political scientist, E. H. Carr. Mr. Scott is a lecturer in Political Science at Victoria University. Maori Folk-lore "TANIWHAS of the Wanganui River came into newspaper prominence recently when a group of Boy Scouts traversing the river from Taumarunui to Wanganui placed an offering of green fern leaves on a rock to appease one of these legendary beings. A series of stories of the taniwhas, and other excerpts from Maori folk-lore and legend, is now being stold at 9.30 p.m. every Sunday from 2XA which, for the past eighteen months, has given up part of its Sunday night programmes to matters closely associated with Wanganui. The compiler and narrator of the current series is William Rakeipoho Bennett, a nephew of the late Bishop Bennett, and he goes under the name of "Rongomai" which means "Hear Me." The talks so far broadcast have created considerable interest in the Wanganui district and 2XA expects, that, as a result, many more stories, myths and legends will come to light. Jamaica Hurricane HORTLY after the hurricane struck Jamaica on August 17 last year, the BBC flew Leonard Cottrell to the island to gather first-hand material for a programme. He btought back a story that was heart-btéeaking and yet, in a way, heart-warming, for it was about a people who set to work immediately to rebuild their homés on thé fuins and re-establish their means of livelihood. From what he was told Cottréll was able to picture thé uncanny peridd of aig with the local radio announcifig deadly approach of the hurricané and advising safety measures; and rain that was a blinding torrent blown at a spééd of over 100 miles an hour. Only four houses out of 200 were left standing 4t Port
Royal; in the coconut plantations results of 30 years’ work were lost in as many minutes, and in the banana plantations 90 per cent. of the crop went that night. Hurricane in Jamaica, as this programme is called, will be broadcast by 2YA at 9.30 a.m, this Sunday, February 10. Child Guidance FIFTY years ago they called childish misbehaviour naughtiness and tried to cure it with a razor strop or the palm of father’s hand. Now it’s called a behaviour problem and treated a little more scientifically. Child Guidance
clinics have, in many cases, taken the place of the rod and, as Renee Stockwell saw when she visited England, the children have been by no means spoilt. Mrs. Stockwell, in a talk to be heard in 4ZB’s Women’s Hour on Friday, February 15, and in Women’s Hour at 3ZB on February 22, 2ZB on February 29 and 1ZB on March 7, will tell of work being done by teams of psychologists in the clinics, and describe the way they handle their cases. The work is not simple. Diagnoses are complicated and the cure is not just a matter of a prescription. Often readjustment means moving the "child to a new school, or even the removal of the entire familyito a fresh district. But it seems to be worth the trouble, she concludes. From Alps to Alps SLORA SMITH, Wellington Hospital pathologist, is in the habit of heading for the widest, most open spaces in her spare fime. In other words she is a mountaineering enthusiast, and a member of the Tararua Tramping Club to boot -or boots. When she found herself in England therefore, meeting her career obligations, she visited thé mountains of Switzerland and Austfia again to indulge in her pastime. In a talk she will give during-the 2YA Women’s session at 11.0 a.m. on Monday, February 11, Dr. Smith will téll of her experiéncés in the Alps -of climbing the Matterhorn, ski-moun-taineéting in Austria and such activities dear to the high altitude hearts of the eidelweiss fratérnity. A comparison betwéén cofiditiéns existing in New Zealand and European mountain country from the trampers’ point of view is also includéd in Dr. Smith’s talk. In Darkest Africa ON’T expect to comé back from safari with a full bag slung over one shoulder. For one thing you couldn't véry well catry two élephants, four buf-
falo, twenty. antelope and unlimited vermin, and anyhow nobody ever gets a full bag. This piece of information is included in Joan Faulkner Blake’s talk A Kiwi on Safari, which will be broadcast by 2YC at 10.0 p.m. on Monday, February 11. Her picture of safari in Northern Rhodesia is as good as any Tarzan feature for the huriting and wild life enthusiasts. and instructive for the listeners who call rats and mice vermin -on safari that means lions, crocodiles, hyenas and warthogs. Just how this biggame hunting goes on, and what place it has in the total picture of Africa from an economic viewpoint, is shown by Mrs. Blake in this commentary on that dream of small boys-on safari in deepest, darkest Africa. She explains, too, that this plenitude of zoo material has its drawbacks, so that New Zealand listeners may in conclusion decide that shooting rabbits on Saturday afternoons is sport enough. Murder With Morals HE interminable search by mystery writers for a new plot or a new twist to an old yarn now and then produces an unusual situation, as in Anthony Berkeley’s Trial and Error, produced in the Wellington studios of the NZBS. The plot is not simple. Mr. Todhunter (played by John Schlesinger) is a middle-aged bachelot who has been told he has but a few months to live. In a search for something out of the ordinary to occupy himself during that time, he decides to remove from the world someone doing it more harm than good. Finding the perfect object of his philanthropic intentions in the person of Jean Norwood, an actress (played by Wendy Gibb) who. makes life miserable for several people around her, Mr. Todhunter shoots her, He is then forced to go to great lengths to prove his responsibility, but this accomplished, he cheats the gallows by dying suddenly at the last minute. Anthony Berkeley was not sat‘isfied with this conclusion however, and contrived evidence suggesting strongly that Mr. Todhunter did not kill the obnoxious woman at all. Who did? That is for listeners to find out if they tune in to 1YC at 9.56 p.m. on Saturday, February 16. : x Barchester Revived LAST year Barchester Towers, perhaps the best known of all of Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire novels, was broadcast by the BBC as one of its popular Sunday Night Serials. This radio version was by H. Oldfield Box who, analysing the pectiliar charm of Trollope’s Barsetshiré, calls it "that imaginary but typically English county where it seems always afternoon." Of Trollopé himself he says that "his genius raises an ordinary domestic a ént to a level that seems almost epic. No ohe is his equal at ie a storm in a teacup, and keeping his readers breathless with happy suspénse lést any of the liquid should splash ovér into the saucer." Barchester Towers will be broadcast by 2YC in ten weekly half-hour épisodes, starting at 10.0 p.m. on Saturday, February 16. :
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 657, 8 February 1952, Page 23
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1,385THINGS TO COME New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 657, 8 February 1952, Page 23
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