PETER POP-EYE

Radio Record, 11 March 1938, Page 16

PETER POP-EYE

Chameleon Announcer Whose Spinach-Bass Can Crack Even _ The Control-Panel’s Gravity

Special to the "Record" by

NORMAN

McLEOD

N announcer who can bring a smile to the Buddha-like face of the control-panel man has "got something." Few do it. Those who do are usually old stagers-men who have learned their comedian-tricks before the footlights and who still, out of habit, retain something of the legitimate actor’s animation. However good the radio-trained man may be, it is seldom that his work appeals to a looker-on. I, personally, have seen wooden-faced announcers putting over comedy-sessions that are convulsing the family in thousands of homes; but to the deaf spectator behind the plate glass they might easily be reading a funeral oration. ... But a man who spent his early life behind the footlights cannot do this. Comedy and gesture are somehow inextricably bound up in his ‘mind. Peter Dawson, radio uncle of 4ZB’s children’s hour, is an old-

Stager. me is the one man in the station who is as funny to watch at work as he is to hear. Years of stage work have given him an amazing versatility and voice control. Dozens of children

have waited in vain at the studio door to see Pop-Hye, the oviginal spinach-eater, in the flesh. For Peter at the microphone can hold a long and involved conversation with him-self-and make it sound like Pop-Eye remonstrating with Olive Oil and a pair of surprised Hollywood boy-friends. OW did he learn? Well, in the old days he played the dapper Papillion in the "Duchess of Dantzig," the tragic hunehback in "Notre Dame," the aged Crumpit in "Maid of the Mountains,’ Long John Silver in ‘Treasure Island." Dickens characterisations, Gilbert and Sullivan, Shakespeare..., When talkies hit the legitimate theatre hard, Peter "discovered" the microphone, and what it promised. For years he broadeast vocal and dramatic recitals from’ Australia’s radio stations, and played leading roles in radio adaptations of such stage successes as "Catherine The Great" and "The Searlet Pimpernel." Tle played before the "mike" with such notable artists as Phil Smith, George Edwards, James Raglan, Claude Fleming, Gladys Moncrieff, Cecil Kelloway.

To this experience Peter Dawson has added several parts in star Australian film productions and commentaries for Cinesound and Natural Studios. In between acquiring repertoire of songs, radio sketches and novelties, he found time to do more than dabble in commercial art-and, in one commission, painted over 10,000 square feet of canvas for the spectacular Arabian © Nights Ball in Sydney. Who said versatile?

HOUGH popular in 4ZB’s breakfast session, Mr. Dawson is best known for his work in the children’s hour. His partner is Miss Annas Gale ("Jill"), a talented young New Zealand singer and musician, who made her mark in Sydney radio before returning to New Zealand to join 3ZB, Christchurch, and later 4ZB. Station 4ZB has many novel features, including Jill’s "Children’s Magazine of the Air" and Peter’s novelties and vocal items, in which both share the honours. But it is Peter with his Pop-Hye impersonation who never fails to amuse the control-room operators. The technician sits at his control panel all day. He knows the wiles of every announcer by heart. When it comes to radio "brightness," he is the most bored man on earth. It is a kind of tradition with his craft never to show the emotion of pleasure, though a pointed "thumbs down" for an announcer’s slip is always permissible. ETHER can claim to be one of the few men to crack a control man’s face of teak. There seems to be something irresistibly funny in watching a man "speaking to himself" in three voices.

After addressing Jill in the high-pitched voice of Stan Laurel, he jumps agilely across the carpet to reply in the severer tones of Robertson Hare; finally capers into another corner and ambles back to

the microphone with a realistic admonition from Pop-Hye that has more than once caused a queue at the studio entrance to await the departure of the real spinach-eater. He ean sketch Pop-Eye in 80 seconds, and has already despatched something like 3000 drawings to his admirers. He keeps a cupboard full of albums of cigarette cards, drawings and comics, which he regularly distributes to his juvenile callers. With such a talented partner as Jill, it is not surprising that 4ZB’s own Pop-Eye has an abiding place in the hearts of Dunedin’s wee Scots. The two are splendid foils for each other’s nonsense, and there’s many an adult who doesn’t mind switching on to the children’s session, just to hear their fun, All the same, it’s the poor, tired, bored, pessimistic control-man who really looks forward to the time when Pop-Hye and Olive Oil appear, in single person, before his range of vision.

Talks to Himself