"RADIO ROADHOUSE" COMES OF AGE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 932, 21 June 1957, Page 3

"RADIO ROADHOUSE" COMES OF AGE

HE pattern of radio comedy for the winter months is complete now that Radio Roadhouse is on the air again. This all-New Zealand show takes its place alongside The Goon Show, Educating Archie, Floggit’s and Hancock’s Half Hour in a welter of its own special brand of fun. Now in its third year Radio Roadhouse still has its original leads in Barry Linehan and Noeline ‘Pritchard, and there have been few changes in the rest of the cast or in the format of the show. But on the production side there’s a mew deal operating under which Roadhouse is no longer a dependent of the NZBS. By mutual agreement between the NZBS and Barry Linehan Productions Ltd., Radio Roadhouse is now an independent unit, which must find its own resources. This is no gag, says Barry, for in the last series the Service supplied much that he must now organise for himself-technicians, the 1ZB Radio Theatre, a vast array of recording equipment, typists and a duplicator (for scripts), sound effects, editing facilities, petty cash, friendly advice and a competent manager in George Perry, now Station Supervisor at 1YA. The Service also engaged and paid members of the cast and orchestra. Now the new firm is paid a fixed lump sum for every show accepted. Barry Linehan told The Listener that there were marked advantages in the new arrangements. He feels he will now be able to build up a larger measure of popular support for the show by presenting it on stage in other centres besides Auckland. He will also be able to sell Radio Roadhouse or any other show he might produce to broadcasting systems of other countries. At present, however, the NZBS_ remains his sole customer. Although the production chores connected with Radio Roadhouse have been farmed out to private firms, 90 per cent of the chances for success or failure lie in a good script-a task which Barry Linehan adds to his others as producer and actor. He told us something of the difficulties in turning out a humorous script for the New Zealand audience which, he claims, is not an easy one to please. It is difficult to be topical because of the time-lapse between the recording of a show and its broadcast. Nor can he afford to be parochial in his humour because, unlike English listeners, New Zealanders outside of Auckland do not take a great interest in the affairs of the country’s largest city. Thus a gag about the Auckland Harbour Bridge might not be intelligible to a Dunedin listener. Barry says he has also to incorporate a small amount

of explanatory material because of the fickle listening habits of New Zealanders. There is no guarantee that the skit used in last week’s show will have been heard by this week’s listeners, and this makes it difficult to establish characters.

In spite of all this Barry Linehan still aims to produce a laugh from his audience every 30 seconds. This does not mean that he must write 40 to 60 jokes for the half-hour show, but rather he must build up a plot full of humorous situations. "Look at the Glums in Take It From Here,’ Barry reminded us. "There’s nothing really funny in Eth’s ‘Oh, Ron!’ or in Jimmy Edwards's ‘’Allo-allo-‘allo,’ except the context in which these catch-phrases occur. Once they are established the characters are humorous in themselves, and only a few gags are required to sustain the situation." The situations in the present series of Radio Roadhouse differ from the last. The show is no longer divided into a number of separate sketches, and, as a result, has more continuity. Barry exploits to the full a situation in which

he has always. excelled-that of a typical New Zealander who is always trying to cope with a maddening succession of minor misfortunes: In dging this he is sometimes assisted and often misled by the other members of the cast, Noeline Pritchard, John Rayner, Mervyn Smith and Kenneth Simich. The upshot of all this is that whether he takes the wrong seat at the pictures, turns up uninvited at a party, receives a. plutocrat’s income tax demand or gets his numbers crossed at the T.A.B., Barry is always in hot water. And, as any Roadhouse fan will testify, these are just the kind of things that could happen to any New Zealander at any time. With music by Crombie Murdoch, the Stardusters and Pat McMinn Radio Roadhouse goes on the air every Wednesday nicht at 9.15 p.m., and is broadcast by 1YA, 2YA, 4YA, 3YZ and 4YZ.