The Man of Property

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 416, 13 June 1947, Page 18

The Man of Property

O mere radio wraiths are the characters in the new 2YD serial The Man of Property. For this most of the credit goes, of course, to Galsworthy, who created his Forsytes as solid as the houses they built, and as the good upper-middle-class earth beneath their feet: Once met they are never forgotten, and though we perhaps have no firsthand knowledge of the age and habitat which produced the Forsytes and their milieu, both are disconcertingly real, since the principle they illustrate is always with us. The adapter, Muriel: Levy, had therefore in one respect an easy _task, since the characters did not need | to be "put across"; they spoke, and there / they were. However her adaptation is an inspired one. Young Jolyon is a con_vincing narrator, since he was later perhaps the only one in a position to know what was happening at the beginning, } The flash-back technique makes for clarity, and the first episode put listeners in possession of all facts necessary for their comprehending enjoyment, without an effect of overloading. But most of all I feel grateful for the way in which the fadio version brings out the epic repetitions of the novel, Jolyon’s "He’s a man of property" and James’s classic plaint "Nobody ever tells me anything,"