In the Wake of the Week's Broadcasts

Radio Record, 11 March 1938, Page 6

In the Wake of the

Week's Broadcasts

WE VOTED IT THE BEST

When {he historical play series, "Coronets o£ England" was first heard in New Zealund over the air from 2ZB we voted it the most consistently excellent feature of its type yet heard. That

appreciation still stands, Through some forty episodes "Coronets" have tun their course,

and there has hardly been a night which has failed to give its meed either of provocative interpretation, brilliant characterisation or exciting event. Now that Queen Hlizabeth has taken the stage from her father, Henry Bluebeard, the series is «ven better than before--for tbis Blizabeth is a vilal und credible person, a

rauting, scheming, capricious and yet profoundly tragic figure whose dangerous game with human emotions and natyons’ destinies becomes frighteningly real to the twentieth-century listener. Henry Bluebeard in his lonely old age palled a little-for it is the women who have the finest voices in this ser-jies-but Elizabeth in her maturity is vastly more stimulating than she was as a girl. Only one thing is wrong with the "Coronets" series. The incidentai musie is far too loud, so that you have to sit close to the dial and be ready to switch over when it comes. "Coronets" series are running at presept from 1YA on Wednesdays at 9.5 pin, 2¥D on Sundays at 7.35 p.m, and from 4ZB on Tuesdays at 9 p.m,

THE DIRECTOR WEPT TO SHOW HER

Onions bring a tear to every eye, bul’ apparently onions are too plebian for the modern film director. Those great, slow, looming drops in the heroine’s beautiful eyes are now generally en-

couraged by more civilised means. Film stars listen to sad music or think sad thoughts

when they want to feign tragedy for the: camera. That, at least, is according to John Batten in one of his daily two o’clock talks from 2ZB last week. He had a good story to tell about a scene in one of his own pictures where he had to say good-bye to his sweetheart and leave her picturesquely grieving as the door closed

behind him. But his sweetheart was in real life a fairly cynical creature, and those tears just would not comt The director gét frantic by the tims he had wasted several hundred feet of film, and so did the crying act himself, just to show her. The ruse worked, The star was quivering with emotion when next she bade good-bye to John Batten, and the tears gushed silently when he left. "Out! yelled the director with some satisfaction, and looked startled as his sobbing star suddenly collapsed on the floor in helpless paroxysms of laughter, Evidently all‘are not sad who sob on the screen. Incidentally, those talks of John Batten’s are good entertainment in their-way. Although his voice is too light and hesitant to record well, the material is widely interesting, light aud intimately told. It is better, anyway, than some after-luncheon conversations. >? Pa,

TENDED TO SHOUT INTO THE "MIKE"

a Max Afford, novelist, and playwright with the Australian Broadcasting Commission, wrote the gripping little play "Avalanche" presented from 4YA last week. There were only two speaking

parts that counted, a spinster, daughter of an English clergyman, aud a Swiss alpine guide.

These two were sheltering in a hut during a blizzard on the slopes of the Alps, and a tense drama was played out when the woman discovered that the guide had killed her lover during the war. The manner of her discovery was neatly done. The sound effects were yery well contrived, particularly the episode when the hut was overwhelmed by an avalanche. The woman’s voice could have been better controlled, she tended to shout into the "mike" at times, and what was rather more irritating, her voice was that of a young woman, not of a 40-year-old spinster. The man offended once or twice by turning over the pages of his script rather noisily.

HE WAS THRICE WOUNDED IN SPANISH WAR

Fighter for the Loyalist forces in Madrid, Tom Spiller, of Napier, was @ good "catch" for a 8ZB interview last week. Replying to questions from the station, Mr. Fred Simpson, and the

station’s radio reporter, Mr. Ian Mackay, Mr, Spiller graphically detailed the terrific

\é¢ombats which had taken place. He ‘was wounded thrice in the course of experiences, which he described as thrilling, and he told a tale or twu of other British adventurers who had joined up with the Government forces. This three-sided interview was very well done.

THE MAGAZINE TOUCH IN RADIO

The light, magazine touch is the style of the series "Adventures of Mr. Penny," ‘written by the son of the pianist Moiseiwitsch, and now being heard over the air in recording froin

the NBS. It is the type of agreeable and rather impossible: fiction that reads in the

"Strand," only told over the air. With

dexterous situations and neatly turned dialogue, the dramatist gets Mr. Penny, a little clerk in the office of the London Transport Board, into fixes of an astonishing nature-in which he finds himself surrounded by spies and mysterious ladies. and "Bright Young Things"’-and then gets him safely out again and returned to his little house in the suburbs, All ready for next week’s instalment. And on the air the work hag exactly the same merit as it has in the pages of the magazines, being very pleasant refreshment for an idle fifteen minutes.

THEY ARE THE LESS RETICENT SEX

"Wives’ Troubles" was decidedly a bright idea for a series of NBS talks about a complaint from which very few married women are free. When it comes to telling their home secrets over

the air women are -through long training at tea par-ties-less reticent than men, And

that’s what is wanted in a radio series like this. The lives of sailors’, clergymen’s, bakers’, lawyers’ and journalists’ wives are all slightly off the skew. The musician’s wife, marrying a handsome young man, told how she found as soon as she came out of the church that her husband and not herself, was the centre of her wedding. "Isn’t he handsome?" she heard in admiring feminine whispers as she came down the aisle, She realised that she had a problem to face straight away. ‘The series ig given from 2YA every Monday.

On March 14, the lawyer’s wife will tel] her tale. She

ANNOUNCER WAS NOT TILDEN

ay Sports announcing is a peculiar art. Its jargon must be accurate and pat -or the keen listener falls back on the end to all radio radio arguments, dial-twisting. Why did I twist my

dial on Saturday after listening to a few minutes of the Quist-Stedman tennis match? Because

the announcer had the annoying habit of calling forehand "forearm," and because of his recurring indecision between "out services" and faults. I felt that I wags really not seeing the game through the eye of someone who knew what it was all about. That announcer may have been a Tilden in his youth, but I have my doubts.

NEW ZEALANDER ON SHORT-WAVE,

Following up his talk from the BBC on January 20 last on "New Zealand’s Romantic West"-a talk on South Westland-Mr. J. .N. Sellers, son of Mr. H. R. Sellers, Wellington, gave 2

fifteen minutes BBO shortwave broadcast, heard at seven a.m. last Friday on his experiences as

the representative of Commander King Hall’s ‘Weekly Men’s Letter for the North of England." He gave lively and amusing impressions of Lancaster and the Lancastrians, and the talk was heard very clearly in New Zealand. Mr. Sellers was at one time announcer at 4YA Dunedin, where he spent 12 months, and left: New Zealand for ngland last July,