Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 803, 10 December 1954, Page 28

Open Microphone

OFF TO WHANGAREI

a "come-back" is Rona Cuthill, the new Women’s Session organiser at 1XN, Whangarei. It isn’t quite a "come-back" in the usual sense of the word, because Rona is no faded personality. Rather it indicates that here’s a young person who has won a New Zealand Government . YOUNG lady who is making

Bursary, studied in London at the Central School of Speech and

Drama, and been happy to come back to her country to give us the benefit of what she has learnt during her scholarship years. Rona Cuthill comes from Invercargill and was educated at Craighead Diocesan School, Timaru, and Canterbury University College. While she was at Canterbury she began to develop her great interest in the theatre and naturally joined the C.U.C. Drama Society, which was then directed by Ngaio Marsh. At that time, too, she became a Fellow of Trinity College, London, in Speech, and had radio experience at Station 3YA. After graduating she

migrated northwards to the post-gradu-ate section of Auckland Teachers’ Training College, where she tried her hand at producing plays: Much more theatre experience brought her the coveted Bursary, and 1952 found Rona in London studying production and teaching. Now she is back and hopes that her training will stand her in good stead as friend and adviser to the women of Northland.

CRICKET CHARACTERS

* UST a week or so ago we heard that Leary Constantine, the 50-year-old West Indian cricketer and welfare worker, had qualified as a barrister. He is going back to Trinidad after 30 years in Britain, and plans to specialise in criminal law. Constantine was one of the greatest all-rounders that cricket has produced, and he talks about his ex-

periences in three BDU talks called Cricketing Characters, which start

from 4YZ at 6.0 p.m. on Sunday, December 19. First of all he talks about what he calls "the rarer art of bowling," and recalls the style and character of some great Test bowlers such as "Tich’"’ Freeman, George Francis and Clarrie Grimmet. On the batting side Constantine says that techniques haven't changed much since the days of W. G. Grace. The difference between the English and Australian approach, he thinks, lies in the attempt of the English to bring the game within the concept of one of the exact sciences. His anecdotes include one about Alec Bedser and Sir Donald Bradman and the latter's son. In his third talk Constantine talks about cricket's spectators. and mentions Some of the characters familiar to professional cricketers the world over. Finally, Constantine, who first played for the West Indies in Test cricket in 1923, has a modest word for his cricketing listeners. "You who watch cricket are just as important as the most famous players," he says. a

«DMUNDO ROS, the popular exponent of Latin-American music whose recordings are top favourites among NZBS listeners, may take part with his famous Orchestra in a big German musical film, according to a report in Melody Maker. Edmundo was said to

CHICKA-BOOM CHICK

have agreed to the plans in principle and was to discuss them in more detail when he returned to London after his five-week season at the National Sport-

ing VUlub, Monte Carlo. The film would probably be made in

Munich, but the sound would be recorded in London. Edmundo has also been offered a return engagement at the National Sporting Club next summer, and will appear at the Chelsea Arts Ball, at the Albert Hall, London, on New Year’s Eve for the fifth successive year. His usual haunt is London’s well-known Coconut Grove.

NEWS (OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD

BACH TO WORDSWORTH

OTS of pianists give asinine but not many tell what they're about," Yvonne Enoch, the English pianist, said when she was visiting New Zealand to give lecture recitals earlier this year. While she was here Yvonne Enoch. recorded six additional programmes for the

NZDS, ranging trom Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue to the

Cheesecombe Suite by the contemporary English composer William Wordsworth hicl ke

SC Ow ee from a manuscript score. Thése will be | broadcast in coming a ae from YZ and — _ We Stations, starting — from 1XN at 94 p.m. on Sunday, De--"cember 19. Yvonne | Enoch studied under Arthur Benja--min, John Hunt and , Adele Verne, and has performed with

the London Symphony Orchestra at. the Albert Hall. Her grandfather was one of the founders of the Royal College of Music, and also founded the music publishing firm of Enoch and Sons. During the war Miss Enoch gave up her music and ran a hostel for escaping Norwegian seamen for six years. Later she joined the Young Vic Company, arranging and conducting music for its productions and training actors in musical parts, *

ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE

AST May Jack Dobson took leave of * absence from the NZBS and set off on the liner Oronsay for the United States and Canada. When he arrived home the other day he brought with him a well-used tape recorder and a bag full mf tapes. "I had four months’ leave," he id. "The idea was that I should come home on a yacht, but the yacht was delayed, so I returned instead on the

freighter Waitomo. We left from Port Alberni on Vancouver

Island with a load of timber, and stopped at Hawaii on the way." Jack made a programme on board the Oronsay which has already been

broadcast under the title Floating City. In San Francisco he compiled another called This is San Francisco, in association with Arthur Feslier, a former NZBS announcer, now working in the city. He also made a programme about life in Honolulu, , which includes an interview with Alexander Spoehr, who succeeded Sir Peter Buck as Director of the Bishop Museum. "IT went to Hollywood and recorded a behind-the-scenes story about the film Désirée, in which Marlon Brando plays the part of Napoleon," he said. "I recorded interviews dealing with research, costume and set design and set construction, and included a description of shooting the film on the sound stage and interviews with the director and the stars." In Los Angeles he made another pro-

gramme called Sunday Night in an American Town. He told us that on Sundays, the theatres, restaurants and certain shops were open, and newspapers were being sold in the streets. He went to the First Methodist Church and recorded part of the service given by the Rev. Richard Sneed. "They buy time on the local radio station to broadcast their service," he said. "And the broadcast is so well arranged that it never goes beyond five seconds of the allotted time." Jack made a number of other programmes, including one describing a crack American train trip through the Rockies; a visit to the Grand Canyon in Arizona; an interview with Alston Lippincotte, the headmistress of a Hollywood school, who had received her teacher-training in New Zealand; an interview with Mrs. Jane S. Fowler, an animator for Walt Disney; and a programme on the timber industry in British Columbia. They will all be broadcast in the new year by the NZBS. He said he found everyone in the United States and Canada "tremendously helpful.’ The question he was most often asked was, "What do. you folks really think of us?" Of Americans in general, Jack said: "You wonder if you're going to like them. But when you get there you find they’re a wonderfully hospitable and friendly people. In fact, I thought they were even more friendly than New Zealanders."

ISLANDS VISIT

x \ ’HEN a Government mission visited the Cook Islands recently; one of its members was Ulric Williams, then officer in charge of Radio New Zealand. Ulric took a tape recorder and filled about 20 tapes with Islands music and

interviews with the local Maori inhabitants, Some of this material may be

‘ heard in the programme "A Visit to the Cook Islands" (3YA, 10.30 a.m., Sunday, December 19). It is No. 53 in the series Song and Story of the Maori, which Ulric has compiled over the years as part of a life-long interest in Polynesian music and legend.