Stories by Farjeon

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 410, 2 May 1947, Page 8

Stories by Farjeon

‘Two readings of the stories of J. Jefferson Farjeon have been heard lately from Dunedin stations, in the form of NZBS productions. In reality, each has been, in this form, the triumph of one personality only, the reader who does them (if it be the same in each case) with a voice of such varied modulation

that the characters come to life and the story unfolds with a vividness as telling as though it had been dramatized by a company of players. The first story was the one about the clerk with homicidal tendencies who is just about to bash the boss (and has already done so, with gory consequences, in his own fertile imagination) when the victim raises his unsuspecting head to announce promotion and ‘a rise in pay for a now thoroughly subdued and relieved employee. The second play, not quite so successful, concerned a lady who led a diffident hero through a ghostly adventure, without at any time becoming visible to him or anyone else. J. Jefferson Farjeon’s stories and plays are meant to be heard; his stuff does not read so well--I remember being unutterably bored with the famous "No. 17" when I read it, although I am told it has quite a different effect in dramatic form. The success of these two readings will, I hope, encourage the NZBS to give us more of the samea well-read story is hereby proven to be equal in appeal to a well-done play: and since the story requires less team-work in its preparation, we may presume it to be so much the easier in production.