Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 660, 29 February 1952, Page 9

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD,

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s° many things happened to Donald ("In a Shady Nook’) Peers fast year thot he had little time to go to the BBC microphones. He wrote the story of a career that to. ‘&'m from the little Welsh mining town of Ammanford to rhe Royal Albert Hall and top of the bill at the London Palladium. He finished a film, made his television debut and started a novel, and his reputation has risen to fantastic heights. The Donald Peers Show is currently broadcast by the ZB stations and 2ZA on Sunday evenings.

OBERT McKENZIE, who discusses The Mother of Parliaments (2YC, Friday evenings), is a Canadian who has made British institutions, mainly from the constitutional aspect, his special subject. From study at Canadian Universities he went with a fellowship to the London School of Economics, where he was appointed Assistant Lecturer. His next talk in this BBC series (March 7), sub-titled "The Men Who Rule," will be about the job of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and will show how the politician gets expert advice. The remaining talks give an account of the cut-and-thrust on the floor of the House and explain to people living outside Great Britain how the Sovereign and the House of Lords fit into the British democratic pattern.

* Bd "te YELL BOYES is used to asking awkward questions, He has been at it as a quizmaster at 2ZB for 10 years.

His first two sessions were called History and All That, and War Topics Quiz, and for the last eight years he has conducted the Wednesday night King of Quiz programme, adding to it a ‘ couple of years ago the Monday evening Give It a Name Jackpot session. Mr. Boyes estimates conservatively that professional inquisitiveness has led him to ask 12,500 questions to date. He told me that another New Zealand King of Quiz Contest like last year’s was almost sure to be staged sume time this year, with perhaps other ZB stations taking part on an elimination basis. m *

HIGH-HEELED ORGANIST

HEN Dr. George Thalben-Ball (musical adviser to the BBC’s religious department) visited Australia recently, people wondered why he wore high-heeled shoes when playing the organ. This .apparently unnecessary

form of footwear is peculiar to him, as far as he knows, but

he finds it a help when playing chords. The bass notes of the organ are nearly always played with the feet, and when playing chords of several notes it is quite possible for the large flat heel of a man’s ordinary shoe to cover one pedal and smudge a second one slightly. And so ThalbenBall’s specially heightened and nar-

towed heels make sure that he produces clean, sharp notes and chords. A Wellington organist tells me that most English organists have their heels chamfered, and use both heel and toe on the pedals, whereas the European organist, in many cases, uses the toe only. i i

NEGRO PIANIST

— — [LONDON SUITE, played by the late "Fats" Waller (4YZ, 7.47 p.m., March 5), is the Negro composerpianist’s only venture into the larcer

forms of his — type of music. It was written in 1939 during his first visit

to England, and it reflects the impressions made on him by

the various districts of London from Limehouse to Bond Street. Behind the recent issue of these recordings is the story of how the master discs were destroyed during the war, and how publication was made possible only by

recording in 1950 from old and worn copies. mi ¥

VIRTUE OF AGE

\WALTER GIESEKING, the» fomous pianist, is now visiting Australia. Two years ago at a Morley College Concert in London, when

he played Mozart’s Concerto in C, K.467, and Beethoven’s Fourth. with

the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, The Times said: "His playing was of the sort that reconciles one to growing old, for no young pianist could conceivably play as he does." x . *k ae ©

MUSIC AND MILLINERY

x ELL known as a solo pianist, accompanist and member of chamber music ensembles, Bessie Pollard, Mus.B., joined the NZBS as programme

organiser for 3YC (then 3YL) in 1942. Then she became

specialist at Head Office (Wellington) in arranging classical programmes which have included French Music, Music for the Connois-

seur, Form in Music, the Bach Bicentenary series, the British Council's Music and News of Music from Britain, and the United States Information Service’s "Music from the U.S.A. When I saw her the other lunch hour she was

enjoying a pianist’s holiday-practising the piano; but in her spare time she likes to do something quite different, running up a dress to her own design or making herself a model hat. "There’s nothing like it for relaxation," she told me, "particularly if I’m silly enough to feel annoyed with something or somebody." That can’t happen often, however, for she is a most amiable musician. Concert-goers have seen Bessie Pollard in action as extra percussion

player for the National Orchestra, for which she has also often acted as pianist; and the programme notes, and the concert preview preceding the Orchestra’s season’ in each city are her work. Artists for whom. she _ has

Played accompaniments include Raymond Beatty, Dorothy Helmrich, Janet Howe, Arthur Servent and Justus Bonn.

UNSOCIAL VEGETABLES

SAM POLLOCK touches on many. odd topics in his weekly BBC Pacific broadcast "News from Home," and none odder than a recent experiment in

growing a new kind of cucumber. Pollock, himself a cucumber

addict, had no idea that the question of "repeats" was a serious one in the vegetable world, but according to the manager of the Tomato and Cucumber Marketing Board, "This ‘Beg Pardon’ business after eating cucumbers is tough on a lot of people." The trade’s backroom boys have been ordered to spare no effort in finding a way to remove the trouble. If they do manage to produce a cucumber that plays no havoc with delicate digestions, it is hoped that they will turn their next attention to the radish. If they can succeed in calming this notoriously effervescent vegetable they will become popular with the general public but extremely unpopular with some music-hall comedians, for the radish is the source of many of their’ most cherished and durable jokes. And what would Gert and Daisy do if the gherkin was equipped with a silencer? we * 7in

THEATRE MEMORIES

ACKNOWLEDGED as one of the greatest authorities on the theatre in England today, W. Macqueen-Pope, hailed by everyone who knows him as

"Popey," is the speaker in the BBC General Overseas Service series

called Theatre Memories. For years on his lecture tours "Popey" has been followed by an admirer who plants himself in the front row, nods his agreement with everything the speaker says, and whatever the subject under discussion, is the first on his feet at question time to ask the same thing: "Is it. a fact or is it not that Lily Langtry is the greatest actress that ever lived?" "Popey" always answers in the affirmative. The old man never stops after he has made his point and marches out majestically, glaring at anyone who might disagree with him. Recently the stalwart admirer has been missing, but "Popey" has no news of him. "All I

know about him," he explains, "is that he is an old London cabby and often had the honour of driving Lily Langtry in a hansom cab." oa. ae |

LORDS OF THE STREETS

bad cg "THE London pedestrians are the lords of the streets. They cross the toad taking no notice of the green and

red traffic lights. They are an all powerful army of ants. London

is a pedestrians’ paradise, and even in the busiest thorouch-

fares it is the pedes‘trian who seems to shave his own. way over the rest of the traffic," said Tetsure Furukaki, president of the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation, in a re ‘cent BBC talk. No doubt _ pedestrians, if put to it, could build up an equally

devastating criticism of userS of wheeled traffic:

YOU'RE WELCOME

THE voice of Jean McPherson has been heard in weekly musical shows from NZBS stations long enough for thousands of listeners to be happily

familiar with« it. During the war she appeared in camp and hospital con-

certs and later in many National and Commercial programmes. A year ago Jean McPherson made a considerable success of "Verse and Chorus," in which she sang the- verse of some popular song, gave listeners time to connect it with a title, and then sang the chorus to prove them right or wrong. Her latest session called "Jean McPherson Invites You to Remember" is being broadcast currently by 2X4A,

2Y¥Z, 2XN and 3XC, and her next, "Melody Time," will start at 1, 3 and 4YA and the YZ stations in April. Jean in private life is Mrs. Cyril Brown, and her husband is supervising technician at Wellington tor the NZBS.