DISTANT PROSPECTS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 798, 5 November 1954, Page 10

DISTANT PROSPECTS

only to poems already well known to them — ones mastered at school or found in every anthology. Others, who would not perhaps seek out new poems in a library, are ready to listen to poetry with pleasure whether or not they recognise the verses or the author. The NZBS wisely caters for both groups: on the one hand, by its playing of record- \ ings of Milton, Keats, Shelley and others, and on the other, by its presentation of New Zealand verse, for instance, and of a new 1YC poetry series. The second programme in this series, The Parson’s Landscape, consisted of, to me, wholly unfamiliar, and yet quite delightful pieces, by 18th and 19th Century clergymen describing the English countryside, among them, William Barnes, George Crabbe, and Charles Tennyson-Turner. Very sensitively read by Laurence Hepworth and Roy Patrick, these poems gave none of the pleasure of a well-known piece, endowed with new significance by an expressive reading, but the joy of hearing for the first time, poems of quiet charm, which, in their newness, conveyed something of the bracing freshness of the prospects they celebrated. people prefer to listen Poor by Comparison FTEN only by reading a really poor novel can a person whose taste is normally good see clearly certain positive values in the kind of thing he’s used to. The same principle applies to the BBC First Rehearsal (1ZB), which has replaced Much Binding, which replaced TIFH. The newer Much Binding,

-benefiting from a change of location, had passed from a period of invalidism to one ee oe convalescencey in which it was ? ning "seme of ‘its’ war- -time vigour. But First Rehearsal seems tO me to be dying on its feet already. Bernard Braden’s jokes so often just fail to come off, the rest of the cast are pale echoes of ITMA types, and the sketches are remarkably unfunny. Perhaps I have an unusually keen ear for the double entendre, but many of First Rehearsal’s lines, too, strike me as being bluer than TIFH at its mauvest. At least, First Rehearsal has this value-that those who listen to it will approach a new series of TIFH with a sharper.appreciation of its. wit; its Skill’ and cits Ofiginality. |

J.C.

R.