BBC Songs from the Shows
OR over 20 years Songs from the Shows has been a favourite with BBC listeners, and a new series has been recorded by the BBC Transcription Service. The special attraction about these programmes of hits from well-known musical plays is that they cover so wide a field that listeners of all ages can find in them something they remember and like. The first programme (2YA, 7.45 p.m., January 16) ranges from The Merry Widow and an Irving Berlin show, Watch Your Step, to Bet Your Life, in which Arthur Askey was starting in London in 1952. Arthur Askey is also the star of this edition of Songs from the Shows, and he is supported by Helen Clare, Eve Becke and Jack Cooper, with the George Mitchell Choir and Billy Ternent and his Concert
Orchestra. The programme was devised and is presented by John Watt, who produced the first Songs from the Shows in 1931. Watt joined the BBC as a producer in Belfast in 1927 after a varied career, which took in acting, painting, journalism, short story writing, gos-sip-writing and dramatic production. In 1930 he was transferred from Belfast to London as a producer in the Variety Department, and he was in charge of BBC variety from 1937 until 1945, when he resigned to work as a free lance. There will be 24 weekly programmes which will eventually be broadcast by all stations. Our photograph (below) shows some of the artists who appear and re-appear throughout. They are Barbara Leigh, John Hanson, Eve Becke and Jack Cooper.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540108.2.48
Bibliographic details
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 755, 8 January 1954, Page 24
Word count
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262BBC Songs from the Shows New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 755, 8 January 1954, Page 24
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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