This is the special interview with Christopher Fry, as described above. An announcer addresses the listener, presumably the members of the Peabody Board, directly, describing the overall series and the context for this interview. "It can be safely said that WNYC's WORLD THEATER...featuring the finest productions of home and abroad...offers to discriminating listeners a feast of mature, literate drama unavailable anywhere else on the airwaves. "By presenting to the American audience the finest productions of the British Broadcasting Corporation (and just to list some of these productions is their best advertisement...CANTERBURY TALES, OTHELLO, AN INSPECTOR CALLS, THE CHERRY ORCHARD and many, many other rewardingly vibrant plays) WNYC is infusing a fresh breath of life into the jaded, tired atmosphere of current radio drama. "Besides these dramatic productions, WNYC this year offered many special cultural features produced by the B.B.C. which had current value to the American listener. The special tribute by British leaders to George Bernard Shaw, soon after his death, was received with great attention by WNYC listeners. And this season, when the British poet-dramatist Christopher Fry was the rage of Broadway, WNYC alertly reflected this interest by broadcasting, exclusively, his A PHOENIX TOO FREQUENT as well as a special interview with this fabulous word-artist of our time. "Domestic productions as well--in fact, the best in American radio--occupy a significant part of WORLD THEATER activities. Every Friday night, WNYC has presented dramatizations of novels by such luminaries as Voltaire, Henry Fielding, Balzac, Dickens, Stendhal, Hawthorne and Victor Hugo. WNYC's active drama staff produced the prize-winning THE HUMAN ADVENTURE series, dramatic stories of 'adventures in ideas'. Several times throughout the year WNYC presented an original dramatic program to commemorate an important holiday...a good example of this phase of its activities was the well-received PAUL IS A LONELY NAME...in honor of United Nations Human Rights Day. Even so mundane--but so important--a subject as the city's street-cleaning problems--was treated via a fast-paced drama-documentary...THIS IS MY BLOCK. "This then is WNYC'S WORLD THEATER...from documentaries on street-cleaning to dramas by Shakespeare...done with taste and, above all, respect for the intelligence of its audience."--1950 Peabody Awards entry form.
