HERE AND THERE MAINLY ABOUT PEOPLE AND PROGRAMME FEATURES

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 10, 15 September 1933, Page 22

HERE AND THERE MAINLY ABOUT PEOPLE AND PROGRAMME FEATURES

HE upper half of the popular vocal duo, "Flotsam and Jetsam," is Mr. B. OC. Hilliam, a Canadian by birth, who began his career as a journalist in Montreal. Newspaper work took him to many parts of the Dominion, and success in journalism was as: sured him. He was at one time news editor of one of the chief dailies in Vancouver, He was a skilful pianist. and was always in great demand in any town where he temporarily resided. He very early made a reputation as a song v~iter, and he inseribed his name in the musical comedy world when he wrote "Buddies," which ran for over two years in New York. He is a great wit ‘and possesses remarkable versatility. The association of the pair began merely for their own amusement, and for a "joke" Hilliam made up a turn out of bits and pieces of his songs that had been rejected. With this they went on the halls, and made the hit of the season. T 4YA on September 22, the "Garrick Players" are to present the delectable A. A. Milne‘s fanciful playlet, "The Princess and the W oodcutter.’ Milne was born in London over fifty-one years ago, but because of his child intuition he says that nobody will believe it. He began writing yerse and parodies for his school magazine, which he subsequently edited, and after going to Cambridge it was not very long before he edited the under-graduates’ magazine. Leaying the university, his parents desired him to take up school-teaching or to enter the Indian Civil Service, but the pen claimed him, and he began to write for newspapers and magazines. The first year brought him £20, and the second over £100. In 1906 he joined the staff of "Punch." and when war broke out he occupied the assistant editor’s chair. After demobilisation Christopher Robin inspired him to write for children-of all ages-and it would seem that "Pooh," "Piglet." "Byore," and all his son’s favourites, will be evergreen in the centuries to come. * ® ? "THERE can be no question that one of the most popular turns from 2YA is a radio-cartoon by Mr. Will Yates, who is possessed of enough invention to scorn imitation of recordings of alleged humorists. He is endowed with a rare quality-the ability

to burlesque with fidelity. A very serious person himself, he is able to see a comie side to the most serious occasion, while the ponderosity of the important personage is the string upon which his human bow can play with originality. Clapham and Dwyer and Amos and Andy possess among them four voices, and that’s not half the number that Will Yates has at his command. ‘The puling infant, decrepit grandad, and the aggressive female are all literally part of himself. He is a

whole company, and his skits having local colour tickle to laughter the most despondent of his hearers. Tune in to 2YA on September 21 and allow Will Yates to amuse you. = ® e N the late sixties of last century the irrepressible influence of. Wagner was beginning to spread its net over every composer in Durope, and not even Verdi’ escaped, although he retained his own style to the end. ‘There is no doubt, however, that "Aida" was the first of Verdi’s operas to be written under that influence, ‘‘Celeste Aida," in a recording of which the great Caruso will be heard at 3YA on September 21; is an ecstatic love song in Aida’s praise in which Rhadames voices a hope he may return victorious to lay the spoils at the feet of "Heavenly Aida-beauty resplendent". before he knows that she is a royal princess and daughter of the king against whom he hopes to march. The air is first favourite among Verdi’s songs for tenor, and in the hands of the mighty it never fails of its thrilling effect. . HE subject of Dr. H. D. Broadhead’s talk at 83YA on September 22, "Scientific Achi¢évements of Ancient Greece," is full of interest ‘in these days when the application of scientific discoveries to:man’s work has put: pro-

duction and absorption so much out of step. Modern chemists perform miracles,.and now we think nothing of their extracting fertiliser from the ais and theix shaming the silkworm by making the most peautiful material from trees. Science, however, had a disreputable ancestor for the alchemist was chiefly occupied in pursuit of the Philosopher’s Stone and the Blixir ef Life, and had little time for import: ant investigations of a more practical character. * a ALCHEMY obviously offered the greatest opportunities to charlatans, for it enabled them to combine the confidence trick with quackery, and though their experiments oceasionally led them to stumble upon a discovery, the world owes little to their investigations. There were, however, among the ancient Greeks many who were honest. They anticipated Watt and the steam engine, and it was in the cause of truth that Archimedes first stated the principle of specific gravity in exposing a fraudulent arti: ficer who alloyed base metal with gold supplied by King Hiero for a crowht. Many others of the true philosophers of old Greece have gratitude due to . them, and Dr. Broadhead’s talk wil undoubtedly attract a very wide audience. * * NCLUDED in the programme to he -given at 3YA on September 30 by the Christchurch Harmonic Society’s Chorus is the famous "Fairy Chorus" from Rutland Boughton’s "The Inmortal Hour." The story of this choral drama is based on a Celtic folk-dramu by "Fiona McLeod," and is centred around a fairy princess, HKtain, who wanders through a mundane world in search of mortal love. She finds it in the poet king Hcchaidh of Ireland. After a year’s bliss, Midir, king of the other world, whose true spouse tain is, comes down to earth to gather her back to the fold. * * s BRovGceTON was born in Aylesbury in 1878 and studied composition at the Royal Academy under Stanford, but he is nevertheless mainly a self taught man. Leaving the college, he joined an orchestra, and later lectured and wrote on music, but he still fet like a soul imprisoned. His emancipation dates from the day when he, it conjunction with Reginald Buckley, conceived the idea of establishing an English ‘Bayreuth at historical Glastonbury. Here in an assembly room, small and unpretensious, they produced such ambitious works as Purcell's "Dido," Gluck’s "Iphigenia," and Bougliton’s own Arthurian operas with a piano instead of an orchestra, and amateur enthusiasm instead professional apathy. . .