Old Familiar Voices
HE Man Who Phoned, by E. N. Tay‘lor, certainly deserved its winning place in the NZBS play competition, being one of the best of these slick and slightly macabre fantasies with Old Man Death playing a leading part. To me it was a curious blend of the familiar and original, the original thanks to the playwright and the familiar thanks to the cast. I am so used to hearing Peggy Walker play the patient wife (Yesterday, To-day and To-morrow, O-U-T Spells Out are two recent examples) that it would give me a rude shock to find her cast as the barmaid who gets bumped off. Selwyn Toogood gets around a little more, but is easily recognised by the constant listener even when disguised as Husband George. The third member of the cast was Bernard Beeby himself, playing his favourite role (he was equally successful when playing it straight in The Pardoner’s Tale and with blowsy comaradie in O-U-T Spells Out). In fact I have become so accustomed to hearing Mr. Beeby sounding like Death that I came all over queer at hearing his voice introducing In the Reign of Gloriana in the Children’s Session. (Miss Walker and Mr. Toogood were also in the cast.) I have often commented on the high standard of NZBS productions, and possibly the best way of maintaining this high standard is for casts to be selected from people of proven ability, But to have the same players constantly recurring tends to distract the listener from considering the play on its own merits, and the characters in the play, ‘instead of being merely their creator’s, take to themselves telegonic traces of their imterpreter’s previous roles,
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 488, 29 October 1948, Page 9
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282Old Familiar Voices New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 488, 29 October 1948, Page 9
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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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