Sensation Plus Culture
HE Pardoner’s Tale was an excellent example of the ease with which the story-within-a-story, so beloved of mediaeval writers, can be translated for radio. It took only a few minutes!to set the stage-the chattering pilgrims, the clipclop of the ponies, a brisk interchange between Pardoner and omnipresent Host -and in those few minutes the radio audience was able to become one of the company, to hear the tale not with sceptical modern, ear but with the ears of those for whom it was intended, ears nurtured on the Moralities and the strong drama of the conflict between good and evil. Shorn of its frame the tale of the three young roisterers who met Death on the road may have seemed hard to get into focus; from the pilgrims’ ’ viewpoint it was not only é@redible but positively frightening. (Hats off to the NZBS production department for a realistic death gurgle and a superb rendition of the climactic final line: "I. am . DEATH!") In this type of producthe NZBS makes no bones about lying on the bed it has chosen, and does not trifle with the heresy that acting depends more on what is left out than on what is put in. I should like to see them attempt more productions of this type--Everyman, for example ~- which provide listeners with dramatic excitement and a strong cultural motive for indulging in it.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19480730.2.24.9
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 475, 30 July 1948, Page 13
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232Sensation Plus Culture New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 475, 30 July 1948, Page 13
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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