LOOKING and LISTENING

TVDuring the school holi • days, one gets inveigled into watching Children's Hour, a part of the job one is apt at other times to neglect. Yet, if the longrun effects, good or bad, of television are to be measured. Children's Hour may well turn out to be more important than any other part of the programme. What 1 have seen recently shows that this responsibility is very reasonably shouldered with a mixture of information, explanation and entertainment. Often, a grownup will enjoy the afternoon more than the evening, and on sheer entertainment value 1 would any day prefer Billy Bunter to the sophisticated comedians, dancers and variety turns of the evening. And the best praise I can give to Glyn Daniel's instructive programme on the Etruscans is that it is worth using on Children's Hour.
Documentaries like " Admirals All " and " Britannia" help to widen horizons. In fact, all in all, B.B.C. Children's Hour is, I am convinced. an absolute asset. May Commercial prove as intelligent and constructively imaginative. Congratulations to the B.B.C. Film Unit for " London " in the '' Cities of Europe " series, It was brilliantly done. and I should award it first pri7e among the films of the series which I have seen—with Vienna second.
While handing out bouquets, Michael Pertwee's play " Night was our Friend " deserves a big one, The domestic thriller with its narrow compass and artificial intensity suits both TV screen and audience, and, on this occasion, the three main actors, Hug Burden, Jill Bennett and Maure Colbourne, provided a brillia. study in contrasts.
M.B.
RADIO. How quickly the ye: passes. It seems only a fe months ago that 1 was noting rr disappointment in the curre Promenade Concert performan, of Prokolicy's delightful nurse tale " Peter and the Wolf." Th year it was magnificently renderi with Richard Attenborough as very lively story-teller. The seemed a great deal more percu Sion in the orchestra, or was th because the radio engineers In arranged things better? 1 do hop though that the piece will I played in the first half of the Pror (and so enjoyed by younger mer hers of the family) next year as had suggested this time last yea It was through listening to la Thursday's Prom. on the This Programme that I heard a repe. "The Poetry Bookshop," an illu trated talk by Alida Monte). I ca it " illustrated " as she cunning used recordings where a hoc would have used pictures or fa similes. She was telling us of tl bookshop started by H. H. Mum in 1913 to make modern poet' more available to more people ar better liked generally. It is astonishing now to reali! that before them modern poeti was hardly ever to be found the shelves of ordinary bool shops. Famous poets came ar gave readings at the Bookshop ar it was some of these recorchnt that we had by way of illustratio
Joan Newton.