Experiment

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 412, 16 May 1947, Page 8

Experiment

SUFFICIENT BEAUTY, by C. Gordon Glover, was listed by the NZBS, perhaps cautiously, as a "radio experiment," ‘and a little misleadingly as "a single day in the life of an ordinary man." Although strictly true, this was misleading because it at once calls to mind James Joyce-with whom the play has not the remotest connection — and also because although Ron Sensible may be described as an ordinary man, the day in question is scarcely an average sort of day. The caution one can perhaps understand, because the language of the play has none. It is wildly, finely extravagant, with its "blue-green wind" and its "scent of the broom" mingling with the less delicate odours of a London pub. It is reminiscent of G. H. Chesterton, its flaunting romanticism thrown into relief by touches of solid, down-to-earth humour. There is Ron’s wife Glad, for instance, who would rise "creaking in her stays" at the Last Judgment; and the London cabby who manages to convey in a few words his utter bewilderment at the fare who asks to be taken to "just anywhere on the Embankment." But the core of satisfaction in this experiment was not the language nor the characters, good as they were, nor even the fact that it failed to fall into the usual groove of radio plays. The really outstanding feature was its aware and éffective use of the radio as a medium.