Late Appointment

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 401, 28 February 1947, Page 13

Late Appointment

T is not very often that I listen to a radio play after ten at night. By that time, usually, I have had a couple of hours of what is known, popularly, as "classical" music, supplemented possibly by a talk or play; and in spite of the protests of other listeners about the almost complete cessation of good music at ten o'clock, I find that the eight till ten period is enough for me. It is true that the attention flags and revives several times during an average night’s entertainment; but to revive interest after ten o'clock the programme must be a great deal better than average. The play which kept me sitting on the edge of my armchair till after 10.30 was one of the Appointment with Fear

series, and it was called "The Case." The final moment in this play was one of incredible anxiety and suspense, compounded with horror, excitement and fear, which remained with the listener even after the play was over. I should dearly love to explain the adventures of the film extra who succumbed to the temptation of stealing someone’s suitcase on a railway platform, and of what happened .when it began to exude a peculiar sticky substance ... . but no, the atmosphere of mounting suspense simply couldn’t be communicated by a description of those terror-stricken scenes, and the best thing I can do is to tell you the name of the play, and allow you to find it in the programmes when it occurs again.