"The Great Ship"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 313, 22 June 1945, Page 9

"The Great Ship"

ROBABLY this work by Eric Link- * later, broadcast over 3YA on a recent Sunday, used the possibilities of radio drama in a new way. I don’t remember any other which moved back and forth in time and space,.told two stories at once, using about eight actors and a narrator, and combined battle action with realistic description, passing over into. a sort of dreamlike intensity where the desert, the sky, and the sea seemed almost interchangeable forms of experience, and then into an allegory which might be no more than delirium. This sounds incredible, but was a triumphant success. The whole highly complicated story-I forgot to mention that there was a passage where we heard a man’s thoughts-came to life and communicated itself.in a manner unique and unforgettable. The technical skill of the author was superb; and his highly imaginative writing, bordering at times on poetic prose, produced some profound effects. The description of two men in the last stages of exhaustion, on a night march in the desert, when it seems that the stars have come to life and are following them in a.shining herd, was like some of the best in Dunsany: only Linklater’s feet are so firmly attached to the ground that one could believe him. The

allegory clearly derived from the seu ence of 1940; from a condition of nearly complete despair, the chief character suddenly senses English history as a unity, a voyage with a destination, and tmoves into the central image of the Great Ship. This is-expressed with great fervour and perhaps a little floridly, but no one could doubt its sincerity. The production was NBS, and very, very good.