Appointment With Fear

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 419, 4 July 1947, Page 8

Appointment With Fear

"THE MAN WHO DIED. TWICE" had nothing on the hundreds of listeners who must have Simply Died, My Dear, any number of times during the unfolding of this gruesome tale, This was the first time I had managéd ta make an Appointment With Fear, and I am not at all sure that my constitution will stand another. The story was a not-specially-subtle one of a crazily jealous husband administering poison to his wife under the most blood-curdling circumstances imaginable. The poison, of course, is a particularly loathsome one, and there is no visible means of escape. But the atmosphere is so cleverly suggested, and the subsequent twists of the plot are so unforeseen that there is an impression of something like genuine horror at what might easily be an oce : sion for scornful laughter. The squeal of the accordion which is heard .- at intervals is an extremely effective device which is, moreover, not overworked. (It has occurred to me as I write that the ghostly tapping of a typewriter in the blackout might be an equally effective trick, and one that could easily be attributed to rats in the empty coal-bin). A telling contrast was made, too, between the normal lunacy of the Parish Concert (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) and the Vicar’s conjuring tricks and the ’orrid ‘abits of Papa Kraft, the Poison King. Oh, yes, I shall be there to keep my next appointment; never fear.