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Radio Record, 24 June 1938, Page 42

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/ Report ! G. Godward (Christchurch): I feel that I must write to you to tell you how much [ enjoyed Gordon Miram’s delectable little satire, "Canons and Cannon." I do hope he will write some more like it. Band Music W. L. Burns (Oamaru): A suggestion to the person responsible for the arrangement of programmes of 3ZB and 4ZB on Sunday mornings. I refer to the band music at 9.80, and ‘Round the Band Rotunda" at 9.31, and I suggest that one station broadcast it from 9 to 9.30, the other from 9.80 to 10. In New Zealand we have hundreds of bandsmen and hundreds of listeners all enjoying this exceptionally bright spot in the ZB programme, and I congratulate the instigator for introducing this entertaining half-hour. I can assure you I am voicing the opinion of a great many listeners who hare been discussing this entertaining special. Playing Bach Surprised (Wellington): I would like to express my _ surprise. at "Scherzo’s’ report on the pianoforte recital given from 2YA by Frances Revere on Thursday, May 26. Even after her magnificent rendering of the Bach Chromatic Fantasie and Fugue, "Scherzo" persists that he has yet to hear a Bach player in New Zealand! Ti would seem, rather, that he is quite incapable of recognising one. "Scherzo" praised a certain Continental artist’s playing of Bach. Of course one is always safe in doing this. The fact of his being from the Continent is sufficient. : ‘Would "Scherzo" be kind enough to state exactly how (in his imagination) Bach should be played? I am sure that many performers with fond hopes of being able to play Bach really would be most grateful. He Liked It Owen R. Lee (Christchurch): I desire to compliment you on the June 10th issue of the "Radio Record." I was very impressed by "Canons and Cannon," by Gordon Mirams, and "This World of Ours," by John Guthrie. The former I am sure will be food for thought for a great number of readers, And He Didn’‘t 1.G.G.S. (Whitford): Recently much credit was given your film critic (and "The Record" as well) for candour in film criticism: are critics of your critic to be allowed equal freedom? Beeause, if so, I should like to disapprove of Mr. Mirams over his unsympathetic account of Ra Hould, in "Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry," whieh T have just seen (twice). Mr. Mirams’s contention was, briefly,

that the boy, or much of what he said, was stilted and unnatural; from this I can only deduce that Mr. Mirams’s acquaintance with "thoroughbred" Ring: lish youngsters is very limited; otherwise he must know that they are often restrained and refined and delicate and polite almost to the point of apparent, if not actual, effeminacy. Lacking this knowledge, and confident that for him or any youngster of his acquaintance to talk and act like Roger Calverton would be the height of affectation and artificiality, Mr. Mirams condemns Rr Tiould’s characterisation on those grounds. I would suggest, first, that this is really a compliment to the boy’s success in representing a type doubtless quite foreign to his own nature; secondly, that if there were really anything radically wrong or inherently ridiculous in the part of Roger Calverton, an experienced English actor like Aubrey Smith would surely have done something to correct it; and. finally, that even if the picture were a little overdrawn here and there to suit some tastes, the blame should surely fall on the author and/or director, and not on a youngster .who could not be supposed to know at first hand ‘the type he was to represent-unless he stndied Freddie Bartholomew, which would have made no material difference. I am confident that Ra Hould played the part of Roger as attractively and as convincingly as Freddie or anyone else could haye. done. But I do agree with Mr. Mirams about the hair-cut! Still Champion ‘For Him L. D. Austin (Wellington) : After ° reading "Jack Daw’s" article, entitled "Exploding the Myth," in this week's "Record," I listened-in. with much interest to the. broadcast about cricker feats from 2YD on Thursday night. I must confess that neither the article nor the broadcast produced any convincing evidence to (dislodge ‘"W.G." from the pedestal he has always occupied in the annals of first-class cricket. One most important point, has been overlooked by both your’ contributor and the broadcasters in their eagerness to rank Jon Bradman as the world's ; greatest batsman ever, yiz., the admittedly far lower standard of modern bowling and fielding as compared with that of a generation ago. Australia today has ne bowlers like Spofforth, Jones, Saunders, Trumble, Worrall, Trott, Ferris, Turner, Garrett, Giffen. Palmer, Midwinter, Boyle, Evans and Scott. Those were the men against whom Grace had to bat, and if Test matches with Australia are to be the criterion of batting merit, how in common fairness can one compare such bowlers with those against whom Bradmin has made his big scores? If the redoubtable Don had had to face the class of bowling which England’s pre-war Test teams were able to muster, I fancy he would haye cut a yery different figure.