Plays Elusive and Unelusive

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 436, 31 October 1947, Page 8

Plays Elusive and Unelusive

HAVING listened to two radio plays on a recent week-He Who Gets Slapped from 2YA and The Dover Road from 2YC-f have not yet made up my mind whether it is better to be amused by A. A. Milne or bemused by the unknown perpetrator of He Who | Gets Slapped. I feel A. A. Milne did not get a chance to exert his well-known charm in the meagre three-quarters of an hour given him by the NZBS adaptation. And as if conscious that this was a concentrated version of the original, the cast became somewhat strident, making a delightful piece of Milnerie seem like something worn by Hedda Hopper. In spite of these disadvantages, however, The Dover Road remained entertaining. The same cannot be said of He Who Gets Slapped. But on the other hand there was about the latter a strong suggestion that here was something to get your teeth into, if only the thing would materialise sufficiently to enable you to come to toothsinking terms with-it, It had atmosphere, depth (unplumbed), a_ strong Petrouchka motif, a dimly-sensed suggestion of The Passing of the Third Floor Back. I am annoyed at having missed so much, and haunted by the fear that the loss may have been caused as much by my denseness as by the author’s obscurity. In fact, for the first time in my listening life I crept away from the radio feeling that it would be a good idea for programme supervisors to adopt the newspaper editor’s practice of having a picture of his Average Reader on his desk, and when in doubt...