Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 796, 22 October 1954, Page 28

Open Microphone

ZEST FOR LIFE

SPARKLE and zest for life A single out Mrs. Dorothea Joblin, of Palmerston North. Her interest in people and places has taken her on two world trips, about which she has written most entertainingly in her series J Stayed There. at present being broadcast in the

ZB Women’s Hour. During her first trip she spent some time in what must

be every womans dream world-a famous fashion house in London. Her second trip realised a longheld ambition to travel right round the world, going to places off the beaten track and meeting all sorts of people. Mrs. Joblin says she has always been interested in art in one form or another. For quite a while she did dress designing and proved herself very adept at it. Now she is interested in words, and her powers of colourful description have won her a wide audience for her accounts of wonderful experiences and strange sights abroad. we

NUMISMATIST COMES BACK

nA 7HEN Harold Mattingly retired from his post at the British Museum in 1948 and came out to New Zealand to see his daughter at Blenheim, he liked the place so much that when he was asked last year to come to Otago University as Williams Evans Visiting Pro-

fessor in Classics he had no hesitation in accepting. He will be here till December. "We are very fond of New Zealand. particularly of the places we know

best-Dunedin, Blenheim and Picton," he says. "Here and there

we could find something to criticise. It strikes us, for example, that New Zealand might be aiming at more independence in her periodical literature than she yet attains. But it’s a country in which an Englishman can very easily feel at home, and if there’s. not the same’ glory of the past there are almost unbounded hopes for the future." Professor Mattingly, alka is to give four talks on St. Paul from 4YC (see page 23), was a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1910. "When I retired in 1948," he says, "they very kindly made me an Honorary Fellow, which implies no special rights and no duties, but is a very pleasant compliment to have from one’s old College." It was in 1910 also that Professor Mattingly joined the Department of Coins and Medals in the British Museum as Assistant-keeper in Charge of Roman Coins. In the 38 years he was there he published five volumes of Roman Imperial Coins for the Museum. He has also translated Tacitus, Agricola and Germanis for the Penguin Classics; and he is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Numismatic Society, and Past-President of the Numismatic Society. "I came to coins through my oldstanding interest in Roman _history," Professor Mattingly explains. "The attractions ‘of the subject have grown on me, so that today I’m prepared to be interested in almost any kind of coineven the Chinese with their square hole in the middle of the round and no types." *

FROM THE LYONS’ DEN

iz MILMGOERS whose memories reach back easily to the early 1930's will remember Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon, but it’s now 18 years since they left Hollywood to go to London. Over the years they

have become popular broadcasters with the BBC. and one of their

best-known shows Life With the Lyons, is now to be heard from NZBS stations. In this listeners will meet: not only Bebe and Ben-who

really are Mr, and Mrs. Lyon, both in and out of the studio-but their daughter and son, Barbara and Richard. The decision to transcribe Life With the Lyons so that it could be heard by listeners overseas pleased Ben Lyon, for as he writes to us: "Ever since Bebe and I left Hollywood ...we have been hoping to tour overseas. So far we have got no further than South Africa-and then only for a short visit." Speaking of the old Hollywood days, Ben recalls that Rio Rita, Reaching for the Moon, Counsellor at Law and Forty-Second Street were among his wife’s film successes. "As for myself," he says, "the title Hell’s Angels may revive old memories. Many of you who were in England during the war will remember also our weekly BBC programme Hi! Gang." Discussing Life With the Lyons, Ben says they are a crazy family on the air, "but many of the situations in which we get embroiled hit home, and I think you may have experienced similar ones. .. We hope that during the coming weeks you will all laugh not only at us but with us." Each half-hour programme in Life With the Lyons is se!f-contained, and ---

the first, "Coming Home," introduces the family as they return from a holiday in Switzerland. The next few episodes show how Ben’s wish to enjoy life’s simple pleasures leads: to a, candlelit evening of amusement for the family but boredom for him. how he takes over the housekeeping during an economy drive with disastrous results, and how the family make last-minute efforts to win an electric toaster at a fair when Ben forgets to buy a wedding present for one of Barbara's friends. Among others in Life With the Lyons are several former members of Tommy Handley’s 17MA-Horace Percival as Mr. Wimple, overwhelmed by a wife and an enormous family; Doris Rogers, a formidable neighbour who constantly battles with Ben and sides with Bebe; and Molly Weir, as the Lyons’s disrespectful Scottish housekeeper Aggie. Lite With the Lyons will start from all YA stations on Saturday, October 30 -from 2YA at 8.0 p.m., and from 1YA, 3YA and 4YA at 8.30 p.m., repeating from 1YD at 7.30 p.m. the following ‘Tuesday. ee ee

SOIL EXPERT

URAL economy is a subject of special interest to Professor W. A. Lewis, who speaks in the 12th programme in the BBC series Man and the Soil. Professor Lewis comes from the West Indies

and has made a close study of agricultural problems in the under-developed coun-

tries. He was one of those responsible for the remarkable study of rural economy produced by the United Nations. He has had a brilliant academic career and has written several books. Before taking up his present appointment of Professor of Economics and Commerce in the University of Manchester, he was Reader in Colonial Economics in the University of London. i

BRITTEN’S NEW OPERA

nx T was something wonderful," wrote the Turin Stampa of Benjamin Britten’s new opera, The Turn of the Screw, which was presented last month at the Venice International Festival of Contemporary Music. Most of those present

ecnoeQaQ Uls Opiivi, | though the critic of the London Times said that

the libretto (by Myfanwy Piper) had many flaws, and other Italian critics thought that the subject, a ghost story by Henry James, was "complieated and morbid." Britten con-

ducted the premiere himself, with a 13piece orchestra and the English Opera Group. The production was by Basil Coleman. The soloists were Jennifer. Vyvvyan.-in the leading role of the Governess ("a major triumph," said the Times), David Hem-. mings (boy soprano)

as Miles, Olive Dyer as Flora, Joan Cross as the Housekeeper, and Peter Pears as Peter Quint. The music was in Britten's most evocative vein, and the action was . developed in 16 brilliant episodes, or turns of the screw, as the two frightened children and their nervous governess gradually became aware of the horror and the evil in the old ghost-ridden. English house.’ The ingenuity of this theatrical device, and the fertility of the invention made the presentation a complete success. "The singing alternated between hummable melodies and tricky modernities," said another reviewer, "but the Italians seemed fairly baffled by the refined music and the obscure Jamesian plot.’ Nevertheless, the cast were brought back for’ eight curtain calls.

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