Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 820, 15 April 1955, Page 24

Open Microphone

tintin NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD

BACK FROM BOSTON

ce HEN ‘television started in. the United States a lot of radio people threw up their hands and thought radio’s days were over, with the result that standards dropped," Eric Honey told us the other day. "But they’re still selling ten million radio sets a year, and the radio companies realise that radio will always be there." Music and news predominated in most of the stations, with spot advertisements, he said. Americans were very news conscious, and many of the stations which were actually owned by newspapers

broadcast the latest news every hour. "Generally speaking, radio is _ still listened to at night, and it should be able to hold its daytime audiences also,

as there are a vast number of car radios in use. An NBC executive in New York whom I

talked to said that radio was in a state of transition, that it still had a future, though he wasn’t sure-what the pattern would be." Eric Honey, who is the NZBS Staff Training Officer, had just returned from Boston when we saw him. He had gone over to marry his American fiancée. "We were married in an old church that the British had used as a barracks during the Revolution," he said. "Afterwards I visited New Hampshire, Martha’s Vineyard, New York and Washington. I drove about 1500 nerve-racking miles by car through traffic that was like mobs of jet-propelled sheep, the cars all tightpacked and doing 50 miles an hour on the good roads." He said that the /programme which had impressed him most in American television was Omnibus, a non-profit educational series produced 26 weeks a year and financed by the Ford Foundation. Omnibus was put on to prove that sponsored TV could be of a high standard, he said, and it incluced such things as the trial scene from Shaw’s Saint Joan or a talk on architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright. It appeared every second Sunday, ran for 90 minutes, and had a very large audience. Each Omnibus show cost about 60,000 dollars to produce,

TOWN FORUM AT 2XP

AST year Station 2XP broadcast a " number of panel discussions on such local New Plymouth problems as

bli whether Pukekura Park should have a sound shell or not. The inspiring genius behind the discussions was L. M. H. Cave, Taranaki-Wanganui tutor of the Victoria University College Regional Council of Adult Education, who has been an active broadcaster from boto 2XP and 2XA in the past few years.

He was also the man who originated the idea of the social survey of Hawera last

year, when a team of V.U.C. Psychology Department research workers visited the district. Next week 2XP is beginning another series of forum discussions on local topics-and once again the man behind the scheme is L. M. H. Cave. But this time something new has been adced. In co-operation with T. F. A. Shankland, 2XP’s, Station Manager, he has worked out the idea of listener participation in the discussions. Listener zroups have been organised, and their findings and recommendations on the previous week’s forum are summarised in the first five minutes of each succeeding broadcast. The first broadcast of Town Forum of the Air will be at 8.15 p.m. on Wednesday, April 20, when the question to be discussed is "Should the New Post-primary School be Co-educa-tional?" *

SHOWCASE ACTRESS

"| HE first thing I ever did was a fairy in Peter Pan at the Wellington Opera House when I was about seven," says Melanie Paul, who played the part of Mary Carlton in an NZBS production of The Middle Watch, broadcast recently from the ZB stations in Sunday’ Showcase. She also plays the part of Cherry in Mister Mysterious, now being

heard from YA and YZ stations. Melanie is a Wellington girl who has spent much of her act-

ing life abroad. When she went overseas she did a good deal of broadcasting in Sydney, and in London played the juvenile lead at. the Richmond and Woolwich Royal Artillery Theatres. She then went into Noel Coward’s Ace of Clubs to understudy the straight parts, and also danced. After doing some work on television she toured Italy for five

months with an Italian company, did three pantomimes in Leeds’ and Bradford ("they run for three or four months," she told us), and two seasons as the juvenile lead with.the Northampton Repertory Company. "I did cabaret work for about four months in London, and the last thing I did before coming out here was a tour in a new Peter Cheyney play, Dance Without Music, playing Esmeralda, the drug addict," she said. "The parts I’ve liked best have been Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday, and Princess Charlotte in The First Gentleman. I also liked playing the part of the Fairy Godmother in pantomime." »

STRAIGHT PART

aA MAURICE DENHAM, the "funny oa voices" man of Much-Binding, the BC comedy programme now being heard from 2XG, 2XA and 3XC, looked far from funny the other day when he returned from Ceylon, where he had been taking part in the film of H. E. Bates’s novel, The Purple Plain Stills

from the film showed the ebullient Maurice looking rather like Trader Horn, writhing in agony on an

arid plain, crawling from the wreckage of an aircraft, and standing proudly defiant on the edge of a precipice. The star of the film is Gregory Peck, but for Maurice it was "my biggest film part to date." "As you can imagine," he added, "it was quite straight." Maurice also made cinematic use of his vocal talents recently when he spoke the lines of several of the animals in a cartoon film version of Animal Farm. *

‘ ° MAN FROM THE OUTBACK

OHNNY COOPER was born in sunny ~ Hawke’s Bay, on a cattle and sheep station 20 miles from Wairoa. It was there, he says, while riding the hills, that ye got the urge to sing the songs of the One day his uncle presented him with a worn-out guitar for his 16th birthday,. and within a couple of months he could sing and play his first tune.

hen, with his guitar he would sing in the evenings to the shear--ing gangs around

the open fire, and soon became very popular with the country folk. A couple of years later; he says, he bid the folks good-bye and headed for the bright lights of Wellington. There he got his first break when the producer of a

variety show wanted a Western act, and . that engagement led to many more, including radio work. But he soon found that solo singing didn’t pay, and in 1953 he formed his own Western combination, called The Range Riders. Army camp shows, radio and stage appearances followed, and one of their most popular numbers, "The Convict and the Rose," was recorded commercially and became a popular hit on the air. Since then three more numbers have been recorded . by Johnny Cooper and his Range Riders. Johnny also toured Korea last year with an NZBS Concert Party. Next Thursday, April 21, at 8.45 p.m., listeners to 2YA will be able to hear the first of six new programmes by Johnny Cooper and his Range Riders, broadcast under the title Radio Trail.

CAN'T STOP SINGING

SINGING comes naturally to Pat Mc- " Minn, who continues to delight listeners and dancers with her popular vocals. Her recordings are frequently played by stations throughout the country and there’s a new one on the way. But it’s a pop-top secret, so you’d better just count on a surprise in store. Meanwhile listeners will be able to hear .

her in a studio broadcast from all YAs and 3YZ on Wednesday, April 20, at 8.18 p.m. Pat was brought up to sing and dance. At nine she was dancing her

way through New Zealand with J. C. Williamson’s White Horse Inn company. At 12

she was singing "Alexander’s Ragtime Band" on 1ZB_ with Neddo’s Jolly Pirates. And at 16... well, now, that’s quite a story. It seems that Grandma

forged Pat's entry form for a_ vocal competition at Auckland’s Dixieland Cabaret. "So I just had to. go. along," she told us recently. "I was the youngest one in it, and, lo and behold, I won." Then followed an engagement with Jonny Madden's Band for two nights

a week. "It was during the war and Mum used to come along and sit with me." When the Dixieland closed, Madcen’s Band moved to the Trocadero, and Pat went along with it for five years. "It was a real full-time job-six nights a week," she said. Besides vocals she did a floor show and organised others with her dancing pupils. On Sundays she performed at camp concerts. Six years ago she left Madden for Ted Croad’s Band, and the Orange Ballroom, where she still appears. There she met’ Ted’s son Eddie, who played the drums. She married him. Four years ago Pat made her first re-cord-"Chewin’ Gum" and flip "Charlie My Boy"’-with John McKenzie and the Astor Dixie Boys (George Campbell, Crombie Murdoch and. Eddie Croad). Her favourite record is "Bimbo," in which she sings a duet with herself, by courtesy of multiple recordings. Pat McMinn has toured with concert parties in Korea twice-in January, 1953, and last July and August. "The boys over there were awfully proud to have their own New Zealand artists with them, and they gave us a wonderful reception," she said. For the future? Well, there’s the breeding of those cocker spaniels Pat and Eddie are so fond of, and there’s the school of dancing to keep her on her toes. As for vocals, Pat just. couldn’t stop singing if she tried.