Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 761, 19 February 1954, Page 24

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD,

By x.

Swarf

C. HARRISON (Kingsland, , Auckland ) writes: "Would you kindly publish information concerning our old friend ‘Officer’ Crosby, and his pe graph?" Marshall Crosby, one of Australia’s best known and loved Sig and radio

characters, died last month. He had taken part in a great many ABC plays and his most recent radio role was as Josh Roberts in Blue Hills. Born in South Australia, Marshall Crosby started off as a telegraph operator, but after winning an Eisteddfod he turned to the stage and appeared in vaudeville as a baritone. He worked with all the main theatrical companies and his partnership with George Wallace, for Fullers’ Vaudeville Circuit, lasted nearly 20 years. During that period he visited New Zealand many times. When the talkies came he took an announcing job with Station 2SM, and later appeared in several films; his first, His Royal Highness, with George Wallace in 1930, was followed by Eureka Stockade, The Overlanders and Kangaroo. Crosby was a past president of Australian Actors’ Equity and vice-governor of the Actors’ Benevolent Fund. My last recollection of him was years ago when he stood with great dignity at the stage door of the old Opera House (now St. James’ Theatre) in Christchurch, saying sonorously to a group of stage-struck adolescents: "Ah, I presume you wish to meet some of the actors." +.

MORE ABOUT DE GROOT

EGINALD DEAR (Otorohanga) writes: "In your issue of January 11, Sergeant H. C. Stephens has given some information about David De Groot. Some of this information appears

to be a little off the beaten track. I myself joined the staff of the Piccadilly Hotel on

September 12, 1912..De Groot’s orchestra was there then, and conducted by himself. It continued at the hotel until 1927, when the hotel was sold and came under new management. He did have other engagements with cinemas at the same time. He also helped to finance and produce in 1927 The Gipsy Princess, which had a short run owing to the very hot summer of that year. It seemed the thing to do at that time to dine at the Piccadilly Restaurant and

listen to De Groot’s orchestta. He himself would always play a solo. When he got up to play, the noise and: all conversation would cease, so that you could hear a pin drop. I am not a musician myself, but I always think he was the best violinist I have heard. His favourite was "The Swan," played solo on muted strings. To hear him play it was a joy never to be forgotten," *

BBC TAKES OVER

HE Shepherd’s Bush Empire, a famous old London musié hall, has closed its doors for the last time as a variety theatre, and has now become an additional studio for BBC television. This fine old theatre, a relic of Ed-

wardian London, has been altered

Oo suit the latest entertainmentgnedium. Shepherd’s Bush Empire was Coit by Sir Oswald Stoll in 1903 as one of a chain of luxury music halls that inaugurated the then revolutionary policy of twice-nightly performances. It opened with an all-star variety programme headed by Fred Karno’s company-with whom Charlie Chaplin appeared in his early daysand in its 50 years has given its patrons revue, musical comedy, drama, pantomime, circus and ice shows, silent films and talkies. Among famous artists who appeared on the Empire’s stage were Dan Leno, Albert Chevalier, Lily Langtry, Wilkie Bard, Harry Tate, Marie Lloyd, George (now Sir George) Robey, Will Hay, Billy Bennett, Nervo and Knox, the Houston Sisters, Elsie and Doris Waters, Gracie Fields and Cicely Courtneidge When the curtain went down on the last variety performance the manager, who had been there for 24 years, found it hard to finish his farewell speech. +

WINKLER QUARTET

"VW E up here have become very interested in the Winkler Quartet, and have most of the available records of

this group," writes "J.G.H." (Lake Tekapo). "However, we have been

able to find out almost nothing about it and would be pleased if you could." Very little information is available here about this combination, save that

it is Swiss and that it specialises in presenting Swiss folk songs. Of these, the best known is "The Fisherman of Bodensee," also performed under the title "Willow, Will You Weep for Me?" The Winkler Quartet-there is also the Winkler Trio-is headed by Franz Winkler, and its presentations are along the lines of the recordings of Will Glahe. *

JUVENILE CRIME

BASIL HENRIQUES, social worker, who, with his wife, visited New 20am land in 1948, is one of the best-known —

men in London, particularly its East End, which was where Stephen Black went to interview him for

fersonal Call, a series of programmes broadcast in the BBC’s London Calling

Asia programme. Henriques, a magistrate who has been working in the East London Juvenile Court since 1926, is a Jew who was brought up in great luxury in the West End. He went to a public school and all his friends had the same happy and wealthy background. He was persuaded to visit Bermondsey, then one of London’s worst slums. He felt ill at oe

a | ee ee een ease, for he had nothing in common with any of the boys and could not even understand their speech. But eventually he began to like them and visited Bermondsey pretty often. He worked among them seriously with Jewish clubs and settlements and was appointed a magistrate. Henriques has always been greatly interested in the difficult child who is a misfit, and he made it his business to study child psychology and juvenile delinquency, maintaining that the vast majority of both juvenile and adult crime springs from the fact that criminals have something wrong with their

background. He has fought fiercely and successfully for a more enlightened attitude towards juvenile crime. *

4 GOBOS AND FLIP-FLOP CUTS

VERY profession has its technical jargon. Newspaper men talk of flongs and founts and sticks. of type. Broadcasting people refer glibly to dub-

bings, swarf and bridges. But since the advent of television the BBC's

glossary of broadcasting terms has grown vastly. Recent additions include "flipflop cut," "gobo," "headroom," "high hat," "hot-up" and "row." Such terms iat

as "headroom," "high hat" and "row" seem to be simple words which most. people know, but in television they have totally different meanings which add to the complexity surrounding this already complicated medium. A "row," for instance, is a piece of scenery in the form of a low cut-out which covers and so masks the bottom edge of a backcloth; and there can be "ground-rows," "moun-tain-rows," "tree-rows" and many others. "Gobo" has a dark, hobgoblin sound and is indeed an opaque black screen which serves to keep unwanted light from a television camera. "High hat" is not, as might be thought, a producer with too great an estimate of his own powers; it is a low mounting for a camera, in the form of a vertical cylinder with a flange that greatly resembles a top hat. "Head room," strangely enough, has nothing to do with the high hat; it is the space on the television screen between the top | of an actor’s head and the upper edge of the picture. To "hot-up" in ordinary parlance is to increase in speed or temperature; in television it is to concentrate the illumination of a lamp by ad- justing its focus. "Flip-flop cut"-a term already almost obsolete-refers to a cut or change from one television camera to another, followed by an early return to the original picture. Pity the novices in their first weeks in BBC television when they are endeavouring to master the queer jargon to which these few words are merely a supplement.

ABOUT VIOLINISTS

* =$ A YOUNG VIOLINIST" (Mokotua, Invercargill): Suggest you ask

your bookshop or library for Violinists of To-

Day, by Donald Brook,