Positively Copperfield...
| HEARD from 3YL a recording of Mr. *" Micawber’s Advice to David Copperfield, read by Bransby Williams, whom I heard again a couple of hours later from 3YA in an Old-time Showman burlesque. Mr. Williams’ technique depends too much on mere orotundity and eccentricity of articulation to acquire that richness and gusto which place Micawber among the lesser gods; he sounds more like the traditional figure of the Impecunious Old Actor, fur-col-lared, moth-eaten, and for ever ingeminating the deathless phrase: "You were bloody marvellous, Laddie-how was I?" I should really like to hear Micawber read by Gillie Potter, become only slightly less cynical and more the actor; for, having become one of the great clowns in the popular mind, he can safely appear as not unconscious of his own absurdity, to which end the Potter voice, with its magnificent virtuosity in the reconditely preposterous, seems perfectly adapted.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19450329.2.17.9
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 301, 29 March 1945, Page 9
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148Positively Copperfield... New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 301, 29 March 1945, Page 9
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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