Maughamful
AM not familiar with the story by Somerset Maugham which forms the basis of the radio play Gigolo and Gigolette, heard from 2YC the other Saturday, but I am inclined to blame its comparative dullness on its adoptive parent, the BBC, rather than on its author. For Maugham is both stylist and storyteller, and as this play is conspicuous for neither quality, the BBC must take some censure either for selecting a bad sample of his work or for making a
clumsy adaptation. The theme is a moving one-the Dacian sire butchered to make a Roman holiday has its modern equivalent in the Dare-Devil Diver who risks her life twice nightly to add extra sparkle to the champagne of the nightclub guests. But the presentation of the theme is unconvincing. When Flora, the Human Cannon Ball, is suffered to speak in riotous Cockney, why is her modern counterpart, the diver, permitted accent and attitude reminiscent of a Coward Private Lifer? The diver’s husband likewise, product of a past composed of equal quantities of dancing marathons and joblessness, has obviously reached his present state by being towed through the BBC on the end of an old school tie, The heroine’s hysterics I admit as being essential to the plot, but since hysterics even in real life sound artificial and unconvincing it would probably take a Bernhardt to make them acceptable to a radio audience.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19461101.2.20.1.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 384, 1 November 1946, Page 10
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234Maughamful New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 384, 1 November 1946, Page 10
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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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