Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 871, 13 April 1956, Page 20

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS ON AND OFF THE RECORD

of the theatre"’-that’s how Frank Néwman sums up the qualities of a producer, Ideally, he says, a producer must be actor, artist, architect, electrician, an expert in geography, history, costume, music and scenery. Most important of all, he should have "a complete understanding of human nature." "I imagine," he says, "it would be difficult to find such a paragon." On that controversial 66 theat of a Pooh-Bah

question whether a producer should act in his own plays, Mr. Newman has de--cided views. A producer should have acting experience, he thinks, but preferably in other people’s plays, "It’s very unsatisfactory from everyone’s point of view for him to play and produce at the same time." Now resident producer for the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society in Christchurch, Frank Newman had 12 years a$ an actor in the professional theatre in England and America. "I count myself very fortunate in having" my apprenticeship in Shakespeare with a famous company, Sir Philip Ben Greet’s," he says. "Greet spent practically his entire working life touring Shakespeare. Many famous people started their careers in his company, including Sybil Thorndike, whose brother, Russell; was the leading man when I joined. ‘B.G.’--as he was always

affectionately referred to, though to his face we always called him ‘Sir’-was then a very old man, and very tired, and his sciatica troubled him. He couldn’t be bothered to do much direction, and he relied on the strong tradition in his company to carry the younger players through. He’d sit comfortably at rehearsals, occasionally chuckling at some private joke, a rug over his knees, eating. sweets from a paper bag. I remember him once watching me go through Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night without saying a single word, and then at the end as

he got up he muttered, ‘I hope you're going to be funny." Since the war Mr. Newman has devoted most of his time to working with the amateur theatre movement. After five years in the Royal Navy he became an instructor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and later was for five years a staff tutor in the Training Department of the British Drama League. During that,time he became well known as producer, lecturer, adjudicator and drama tutor, and has judged at festivals throughout Britain. and in Germany, Malta and Gibraltar. He is also an examiner in Speech for the Trinity College of Music, and examined in South Africa in 1953. The talks, On Stage, in which he is now being heard from 3YC on Wednesday nights (they will be heard later from other YC _ stations) are no new field for him-he has broadcast in England, Ceylon, South Africa and Australia. Mr. Newman mentions in his talks the recent great revival of interest in religious drama, and recalls his production of Everyman in the Chapter House of Canterbury Cathedral in 1950. The Religious Drama Society has asked him to produce this famous old play next November in Christchurch Cathe-

YOUNG | RECRUIT

dral, and for this he intends to try an arena form of production, "The stage space will be in the very centre of the nave," he says, "with the audience entirely encircling it,-so that no one will be seated further than six rows back from the acting area." -

nw VERY young’ (all of 19 years) recruit to Women’s Hour at 2ZA is _Mary-Pat Barnao. Palmerston North is Mary-Pat’s home town, but she was | educated at the Sacré Coeur Convent, | Wellington, and at Victoria University

College. While still at school, she was , taught public speaking by Pru-

gence Uuregory, now or 4ZB Women’s Hour, and later she studied drama with Maria Dronke. At home in the Manawatu, drama is still Mary-Pat’s chief interest, and she is on the executive of the Repertory Society there. She won the 1955-56 Repertory Cousins’ Scholarship awarded to the most promising member uncer 21, and this took her to the January Drama School at Massey College.

Before she joined the ‘NZBS, MaryPat was on the reporting staff of the Manawatu. Daily Times. She then started at 2ZA in the Copy Department, became assistant to the Women’s Hour organisers, and subsequently did the Christmas Shopping Session. A busy working life and her interest in the theatre still leave Mary-Pat some energy for sport. In the summer she plays tennis and swims (she is a former backstroke champion of the Manawatu), and in winter she plays golf and fences.

F you can get used to the idea that Lemmy Barnet, the sceptical, down-to-earth Cockney of Journey Into Space, is also the’ ageing East European diplomat of the film The Young" Lovers, you may begin to wonder what the undisguised original looks like. Actually, that’s something we're still wondering (continued on next pege) 7 oe Ss

LEMMY

(continued from previous page) about ourselves, but there seems to be little doubt that after a bare nitie vears

as an actor David Kossoff is still only in his middle thirties. His part in The

Young Lovers isn’t the only one for which he has doubled hig age, for he has done a ‘number of fine character studies of men in ‘their sixties and seventies-the most recent of them: Mr. Kandinsky in A Kid for Two Farthings, now being shown in New Zealand. As a ‘young ‘man David Kossoff_ intended to be a technical artist, but back in 1945 he joined the BBC Repertory Company, where he stayed for six

years. He says: "It was a good school for learning the profession, I assure you." To prove that he had learnt the job thoroughly, David won with his very first film a British Film Academy award for the best supporting actor of the year. Among his recent radio appearances was a leading part in a BBC production of The Same Sky. This evidently has something of the quality of The Young Lovers, for it has been described as "a play to be seen by all who feel pity for the loves and perplexity at the hates of mankind." In this David had the part of the father of a Jewish girl, played by Yvonne Mitchell, who also wrote the play.