Win or Lose

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 414, 30 May 1947, Page 9

Win or Lose

AVING followed with interest the discussion on the merits and demerits of Cecil Lewis’s adaptation of "The’ Rocking Horse Winner" I was glad to take the opportunity of hearing this play when it was broadcast from 3ZR the other evening. It was well-pro-duced, well-acted, and kept as closely as possible to the original story; yet it was not, I think, a success. For. a listener who does not know D. H, Lawrence or thé original, I can well see that the only possible reaction might be derisive laughter-laughter at what is apparently a sensational stunt that doesn’t quite come off. With audiences who hoot scornfully at most of the wellmeaning attempts to invent new manifestations of the mysterious and the miraculous, script-writers have to cast about far and wide in the hope of finding something different. I think audiences could not be blamed for thinking the "Rocking Horse Winner" a new and particularly foolish venture. The "whispers" in the house sounded-in-evitably, I’m afraid-like an asthmatic beggar and his starving family. And because the approaching climax is suggested in the story by what for want of a better word we must call "atmosphere" in the play the end seems to be reached without any real climax at all The wholé significance of the origina’ story just didn’t get across. But whethe’ it is nonsense, blasphemy, or a legiti mate use of undoubtedly powerful idea: depends rather on individual opinior and understanding of D. H. Lawrenc: and his medium than on any impres sions to be gained from a second-hanc radio version,