New Productions by NZBS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 916, 1 March 1957, Page 10

New Productions by NZBS

FILMGOERS may remember trilogy of French films, starring Raimu, which came out in the thirties. These three, Marius, César, and Fanny, were written by Marcel Pagnol, the ‘film producer and editor of Cahiers du Film. Based on life in Marseilles, the plays introduce a number of the picturesque characters who live and work on the waterfront; César, who keeps a small café, his son Marius, Honorine and her daughter Fanny, who run a fish stall, Panisse, the sailmaker, and various sea captains and sailors. Now the plays have been adapted for tadio, and William Austin has produced the first, Marius, for the NZBS. This: play centres around Marius’s conflicting loves for Fanny and the sea. His father intends him to marry Fanny and take over the shop (eventually); Fanny is willing, but Marius is continually sidetracked. Marius is played by Alan Jarvis, Fanny by Dorothy Munro, Cesar by Roy Leywood, and MHonorine by Davina Whitehouse; Michael Cotterill is Panisse. This play will be heard on the YC stations, starting from 1YC and 4YC on March 5. Castle in the Air is the play to be heard in Sunday Showcase on March 10. This lively comedy by Alan Mel- ville has been adapted for radio by

Oliver A. Gillespie and produced by Bernard Beeby. It concerns Mrs. Dunne, a wealthy American widow, who wants to buy the ancestral home of the Earl of Locharne. His eagerness to sell the castle to her is complicated by the presence of Mr. Phillips, of the Coal Board, who intends to requisition the castle as a rest home for miners. Dorothy Campbell, who plays Mrs. Dunne, is in New Zealand to visit her family. The wife of Donald Campbell, the water-speed record holder, she has made a name for herself as an actress and I'V personality in London.