Listening While I Work (15)

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 241, 4 February 1944, Page 14

Listening While I Work (15)

t- By

Materfamilias

HE LOST DESTROYER sounds as though it will be a good war-mystery thriller. It is a BBC production and unfortunately a serial, but I think we were told that there are only six episodes, That is a consolation to me. I like to know when I begin listening to a serial whether I shall be expected to listen every week for a month or a year. Between these two there is a world of difference. It is not merely that I object to having a story hanging over me for months almost as much as I object to having a half-read book dragging on. With a half-read book I have at least the satisfaction-or dissatisfaction-of knowing that it is my fault that the book is not read. I could make the effort if I wished, even if it meant sitting up all night. But with a long serial the story is dealt out in small doses at the whim of the producer or author or whoever is responsible. The end fades off into eternity. Places, characters, events, interests, everything may change except the name of the serial and its leading

characters, and still it goes on relentlessly. If you listen once in three weeks or sO you can pick up adequate knowledge of what’s what-enough at least to keep alive your friendship over the fence with a lettuce-growing neighbour. But apart from acquiring a vegetable or so over the fence on the strength of a discussion of the virtues of John Wayne or the happenings in Judy and Jane, I cannot say that I have found much entertainment myself in long serials. So I hope that I heard rightly that The Lost Destroyer was in six episodes, And I wish I could have it all in one evening or at the most two. * * * HE FATAL STEP (2YA, Sunday, January 23) was described as a problem play. I found’a problem all right, though not the one that I was meant to find. My problem was to invisage, in the one character, a man who was brutal enough to murder his wife, a doctor clever enough to discover a cure for cancer, and a scientist bad enough to be willing for his discovery to die with him. I always imagined that scientists were as closely wedded to their discoveries as to their wives-or more so. In this case he could not have been very devoted to his wife or he would not have murdered her. O.K. But why should he want his discovery to die, too? Well; I don’t know. I looked forward to meeting Dr. Parker, but as the story books say,

it was not to be. Instead we had a long session with the Home Secretary, who takes so long making up his mind whether Dr. Park should be reprieved or not that the authors find a convenient way of letting him off making his decision. * ie * STILL, The Fatal Step was a change from the usual run of radio plays. It depended on an idea instead of on action and plot. There was a problem, and quite an interesting one. Should a criminal condemned to death be hanged if by staying alive he could be the means of saving thousands of sufferers from cancer? But there was not enough beyond the problem. To write a detective story, says Dorothy Sayers, you first need the idea or inspiration for your story. That is the nucleus: the problem. But the hard work is in the working out of the plot and characters. I felt with this play that the whole thing hung too precariously on one idea. The beginning, with the judge’s summing-up of the case and the discussion among the jurymen, was good. After that the play deteriorated into a tedious series of discussions between the*-Home Secretary and others as to whether our doctor should be hanged or pardoned. He needed first to be brought to life. But the fault lay partly also with the actors. The voices were (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) similar and monotonous, and I suspect from the acting and tone of the play that this is not a new production. % %* % SERIES of events which I can only call mishaps has caused me to listen to the ZB’s at 7.30 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. My first regret is that Out of the Darkness should be on at a time when many youngsters are still up and anxious to listen to a serial before going to bed. Recently there has been a move in Australia to prevent unsuitable serials and plays from coming over the air at a time when children are likely to listen to them. If older members of the family listen there is a big chance that the younger children will also prick up their ears. Many children can go to bed quite cheerfully after having had their blood curdled by a story about a man brought:-back to life with the help of injections of glandsecretions from a Russian wolfhound, and are not affected by screams and murders and homicidal maniacs. But there are also many who become nervous, though they do not admit it. Out of the Darkness, is, in fact, not a nice story at all.