Topping

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 396, 24 January 1947, Page 18

Topping

FIND it difficult to believe that the NZBS production of The Adventures of Topper now being heard over the ZB’s has been adapted in any way for New Zealand consumption from the original American radio script, so perfectly does it conjure up memories of both book and film. Mr. Bernard Beeby, the producer, stated in a recent Listener interview that the main parts have been given an atmosphere acceptable to New Zealand audiences, but I still maintain that the atmosphere is the work of Mr. Thorne Smith (confidentially, it’s a little stale) and that its acceptability depends on our being men-of-the-world rather than New Zealanders. However, perhaps Mr. Beeby

De lll has allowed for the fact that we are less men-of-the-world than our opposite numbers in the States. "Topper" would seem at first a surprising choice for radio since its humour, so well exploited in the film version, depends on things seen and unseen rather than things heard. But the radio script is competent and one seems to miss nothing of the plot’s absurdities. Technically the NZBS production studios have excelled themselves, and if our loftier self does suggest that all this talent would have been better employed on Shaw or Ibsen, in our normal moments we do not begrudge either ourselves or the cast their half-hours of good fun.