Radio_Hong_Kong_1956-1957 — Page 21

But

were brought to the microphone, continued undiminished. after a record run of 100 performances, the producers and compères felt their ideas getting stale and a rest was prescribed. The programme will probably return to the air, but its place has been taken by an equally popular show owing something to the B.B.C.'s 'Down Your Way'. Each week the producer of the programme has gone out into the streets of the Colony, and into some of the areas of the New Territories, to bring together people either living together as a community or engaged in a common calling. Some five or six people take part in each programme and after talking about themselves, and their lives. and work, request their favourite music. Programmes have come from such places as a bakery in Shaukiwan, a coffee house near Central Market, the Central District waterfront, and a floating restaurant at Aberdeen. Participants have requested songs ranging from 'Love me Tender', sung in Kuoyu, to works from Cantonese opera with such intriguing English titles as 'The experience of lying on a firewood bed and tasting the gall-bladders in the Wu dynasty'. It is to the regret of the English service that so much of the real life of the Colony, depicted in such programmes, cannot be broadcast in English.

51. The number of factories taking part in the 'Workers Playtime' series rose to 22 by the end of the year. To the workers in most of the Colony's industrial areas the Tuesday morning visit of artists and recording car was a pleasant lunch hour break. The pattern of the broadcasts has now been well ́established and the personality of the performers well developed. In addition to the professional entertainers, workers themselves take part in the talent contest which is included in each pro- gramme.

52. 'Beginners Please', which originated on the English programme, proved so popular with the Chinese programme when it was introduced in December that over three hundred aspiring performers registered their names, and the series was still in full swing at the end of the year. The finals of the first session were held in the Central Theatre.

53. 'It's in The News' was another idea which caught on with Chinese listeners, although it seems basically more suitable for western audiences and was possibly not so popular in Chinese as its English counterpart.

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