Passing Pageant

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 24, 25 November 1938, Page 12

Passing

Pageant

by

Trevor

Lane

WO years ago two New Zealand girls living in London shifted from a ightly suburban flat in t. John’s Wood to someing much more exciting d artistic in a mews ar Hyde Park. This ttle flat-like most of 1ose in the mews that oneycombh the West End had orginally been a able for one of the grand ouses in the neighbour- & f getting the big pieces f furniture into the flat vas through the orginal pening where the horseeed was once brought in or storing. The carter was one of the ost eross-eyed men in London nd, when the exertion of haul1g in the grand piano was yer, he looked more cross-eyed han ever. Surrounded by all the grime f a long-empty flat, packing ases littered about, their hair ith dust, the two girls sudenly sat down and laughed. ere they were, thousands of iles from home, sitting ina ittle flat in a London mews, nd with a eross-eyed carter ushing up their furniture hrough a hole in the floor! * ONE of the girls had an inspiration ... opened the. piano, propped a suitcase on end for a seat and ran off a tune that seemed to fit the mood of that crazy afternoor

‘il It was her own composition, and she called it ‘‘The Cross-Eyed Carter.’’ The other night in Wellincton I heard those two girls play that same tune to a well-dressed audience of several hundred. Betty Blamires no longer had untidy hair, nor was her sister Vivienne in a dusty smock. Betty-for she was the composer-had her dark hair sleek and shining and wore a rich red velvet dress; her sister, Vivienne, was in cool silvery-purple, interesting and serene as a winter’s sunset in the Alps. These two girls were in London for four years, studying hard, meeting people... and probably watching the pennies, too. They eame back to New Zealand a few weeks ago and the other day they sent me an invitation to a recital. * Now, if there’s one thing in the world that has me thinking up excuses for not being there, it’s a recital. You go along as a rule to find a handful of relations and really staunch friends in the front three rows, a couple of disconsolate ushers hang round in the gloom at the back of the hall, the curtain doesn’t work properly, the stage is bare and the aspiring performer is usually about as talented as an iceberg in a choppy sea. So, when I found a queue half-way down the Town Hall steps the other night, I was quite certain I had come. to the wrong place. But no-the tickets distinctly said concert ehamber. The hall was crowded ‘and the audience buzzed with an. excited expectation that made one think of a first night at Covent Garden or something like that. * HE grand piano on the stage reflected the glow _ of amber lights, a tall bowt of white lilies on one side of the stage was balanced by «@ lower bowl of. scarlet flowers on the other. Betiy Blamires, with grace -and fine feeling, played a Chopin etude, something of : Debussy’s and something. of her own-‘ whieh I have dedi- | cated, although they don’t know it,.to my -mother and father, because they have always been so wonderful to aus.?? sO Vivienne Blamires, tm colourful peasant costunve, sang some fascinating little

songs that came from the Appalachian Mountains, from the simple folk there. The two girls played a sonata for piano and violin. Betty Blamires came back and proved herself a younger edition of Ruth Draper in @ scene from the famous play,

"Viceroy Sarahk.’’ She was doddering old Queen Anne and the Duchess of Marlborough at one and the same time, -and she drew the two characters with exquisite skill. Vivienne Blamires played some violin solos, including the one I’ve already mentioned... ""The Cross-Eyed Carter."’

OR nearly two and a half hours these two young New Zealanders, daughters of a Wellington clergyman, entertained a critical audience, and entertained it with the grace and charm of two polished Old World artists. , T don’t know enough about music to tell you whether their

arpeggios were technically right -and you probably wouldn’t yead this if I did-but I do know that I thoroughly enjoyed the eyening’s entertainment. * ERE are two girls who should tour New Zealand, who should be seen on the stage in every town in the country, who

should he heard over the air, 11 £ were organising programmes for broadcasting here’s a half-hour that I could fix in just as long as it takes me te put this down. ... Debussy’s Toccata, played by Betty Blamires. Three Appalachian folk songs sung by Vivienne Blamires. Scene from "‘ Vieeray Sarah,’? by Betty Blamires. Two violin solos, ‘‘Hungarian Danece,’’ by Brahms Joachim, and "Berceuse," by Cui, played by Yivienne Blamires. I looked round for Professor Shelley in the audience that night. He should have beer there-he might have changed his policy about not sending our own New Zealeanders on 2 tour of the national broadeasting stations, * BY the way, that’s one of the most stupid things I’ve ever heard. Did you know that, even if you’re a local Menuhin or a budding Galli Curci, it is against the policy of the broadcasting people to send you on tour? But if you’re a middling singer from Peru or Pretoria or Little-Puddle -in-the-Marshes and yeu get an engagement with the NBS your travelling expenses are paid as you move from one station to the other in New Zealand. The fact that you might be a New Zealander who has studied in Loniion, broadcast over the BBC, played in the Queen’s Hall, and eventually come back to your own country to give your own people the benefit of your knowledge and skill is sufficient to earn you scant attention from the people who contral broadcasting. | 4 THE other night I dropped into the Majestic Cabaret in Wellington and found several hundred young things thoroughly enjoying themselves to the music of Sammy Lee’s band. The tune?-Yes, the Lambeth Walk. The Lambeth Walk, which the ‘‘Record"’ feels kind of responsible for putting on the New Zealand entertainment map, is one of the most get-under-your-skin tunes that I’ve heard in a long time. I saw ‘‘Me and My Givl,"’ the show to whieh the Lambeth Walk belongs, at lLendon’s shabbiest music hall a fortnight

after it opened. The house had lots of gaps and, apart from the Lambeth Walk, there was nothing to distinguish it from a hundred other musical

comedies. * HE "‘ secret history’’ of the Lambeth Walk is now coming to light. Like cricket, show business is a game of glorious uncertainty and history will never produce a better example than ‘‘Me and My Giri.’’ Tt had an undistinguished eight weeks’ provincial tour and came to London at the beginning of this year. Lvpino Lane, famous comedian and chief backer of the show, didn’t realise that he was sitting on a gold-mine, when, after three weeks he put the fatal notice up on the board + ***Me and My Girl’ will conclude in a week’s time.’’ But a miracle intervened. A DOUR broad-shouldered Seot with bony, war-scarred features, the BBC’s Sir John Reith, stepped in as fairy-god-mother, saving the Lambeth Walk from oblivion. A broadeast of portions of *"*Me and My Girl’’ ‘had been arranged from Broadcasting House, London, four days before the play was due to close. At the last minute it was found

er that the broadeast was three and a half minutes short of the allotted time and an SOS was sent to the Victoria Palace for something to fill in the extra time. It was decided to play. the chorus of the Lambeth Walk, a

number that had not been considered good enough for broadcasting when the original selection was made, e& F&F

-- NEXT night the Victoria Palace was crowded with curious people who wanted to find out about the ‘‘oi."’ From that. night business for ‘‘Me and My Girl’’ grew and grew. The show has taken nearly £175,000 to date, has averaged £3000 a week, has broken the record of the Victoria Palace with £4000 for a week, has been produced in Paris and New York and is shortly to be put on the stage in New Zealand and Australia. Composer of the lLambcth Walk is Noel Gay, whose real name is Maxen Armitage, M.A., trained as a classical musician and today one of the most suc-

cessful of Britain’s light composers. He wote ‘‘King’s Horses’? and ‘‘She Couldn’t Say No."’ .

SUNG and danced in Scandinavia, France, Germany, Ttaly, the United States and throughout the British Empire, the Lambeth Walk might have become the marching song of allies and enemy alike if the crisis of the other month had brought war. For the first time in history opposing armies

would have marched to te same ‘‘Tipperary.’’ As it is, the Lambeth walk ‘will remain in Europe’s memory as the peace song, the signature tune of the crisis.

ASKED what they had learned from Canada on _ their return from that Dominion recently, a party of English public-school boys talked about salmon fisheries and colonial history. Asked what they had taught Canada they replied in one voice, ‘‘The Lambeth Walk.’’ * HOST unusual circumstances ‘' in which [I heard the Lambeth Walk was at Tenerife when a shipload of Spanish soldiers, sailing to join Franeo in Spain, gave voice to this Cockney tune in their own native tongue. , Later in a German restaurant in the littlé town I heard a Ger-

man-made gramophone record grinding out the same tune; Tenerife is historie as the place where General Franco began the assault that has

araggead On wearily ‘tor some years now. This important island in the Canary group was under the governorship of Franco, who flew one afternoon to: a neighbouring island to attend the funeral of an important official there. why

, | . UT plans had been laid. The funeral : over, Franco continued on his. way by powerful plane to the mainland ~ of . Spain, there to launch his war against the Loyalists. His lieutenants in Tenerife did their work well, With tne loss of only one lifea man who was shot down in the sunny plaza on the waterfront one afternoon -Tenerife was taken for Franco. And since then more than 65,000 men have sail-

ed for Spain to fight for the Nationist cause. * WAS interested in lines of sad-looking women queued up in the streets with small boxes in their hands. The British Consul told me later that these were boxes of sweetmeats and cigarettes for their menfolk fighting on the mainland. **But so much smuggling was going on,’’ he explained, ‘‘that the authorities now insist that the boxes be brought to depots and examined before they are finally sealed for dispatch.’’

ENERIFE is a fascinating place, full of very old men and women, very young boys and girls... all the ‘‘in-be-

tweens’ are away in Spain fighting. German and Italian flags are everywhere ... the harbour is full of German and Italian shipping, including one or two warships. We needed a reminder that the place really DID belong to Spain! . In the little boat that took us back to our liner we passed a boatload of bronzed young Nazis, stripped to the waist, and rowing with Prussian precision. We couldn’t resist giving them the Nazi salute. They were thrown into confusion and their machine-like movements were hopelessly destroyed. After all, it is a little difficult to keep on rowing and. ‘‘Heil Hitler’’ at the same time!

LAMBETH WALK IS FRONT PAGE NEWS! ZB Stations And "Record" Put It On N.Z. Map EACEFUL New Zealand homes have been broken up this week ... bridge fiends have heen Pp lured away from their tables . ., snatches of song have rent the air. And the reason for it all? Well, of course-the Lambeth Walk! Since the "Record" and the ZB broadcasting stations launched this fascinating tune and dance on the public last week, its popularity has snowballed unti! to-day, one week after the first aanouncement, the whole country has some idea of the Lambet’. Walk. The broadcasts from the ZB stations on Wednesday and Friday of last week were excellently handled and everywhere listeners were trying out the Lambeth Walk in their own homes. In Wellington the dance was featured by Sammy Lee and his Americanadians at the Najestic Cabaret and every night it was received with the greatest applause. At St. James Theatre in Wellington, a demonstration is being given on the stage this week by Mr. and Mrs. Southern Colledge, and exceptional interest is being shown. The "Record" is pleased about the success of the Lambeth. Walk, too. Despite an extra printing of some thousands of copies, last week’s issue, which contained diagrams of the way to do the dance, was completely sold out in several New Zealand centres.