Pop, Mom, and the Kids

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 800, 19 November 1954, Page 10

Pop, Mom, and the Kids

Y disaaiersey is long enough to embrace Bebe Daniels in her heyday doing a female Fairbanks down (continued on next page)

blazing hangings. But since those days, she and her erstwhile film actor husband have become very popular figures on British radio. Some listeners to the first. Life With the Lyons programme from 1YA might have wondered why. Although it is hard to judge the quality of such features from the first episode, I think I can understand its appeal to British listeners. It is essentially American in style, built up round family life with a kind of Dagwood-Blondie set-up in the centre-Pop, blundering, well-in-tentioned, unfortunate; Mom, cool, suave, tolerant; and the kids playing both ends aginst the middle. Like American series, too, it has breezy dialogue and a quick flow; and, despite 18 years in England, the Lyons retain enough accent to give it an exotic flavour, Yet the absence of insult-gags and aggressive mateyness, arfd the presence of a simpler spirit of fun indicate the modifying influence of environment. Rather different from the usual run of BBC light programmes, this AngloAmerican hybrid sounds to me as if it will prove agreeable listening along a new line.