Half-an-Hour with Alice

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 508, 18 March 1949, Page 10

Half-an-Hour with Alice

ISTENERS to 4YA were able recently to spend a delightful half-hour with Alice, when some of her adventures in Wonderland were read by Anita Oliver and Roland Watson. "Read’’ however is not the right word for this remarkable performance, although I daresay no word of the original script was altered to dramatize it. But every variety of sub-human voice, was heard, from the thin mouse-squeak to the bronchial thunderings of the dodo. Some tales don’t lend themselves to this réalistic treatment, and are better for a plain straightforward reading. Others, and Alice is one, demand that the radio performers differentiate between the characters; otherwise the full fantastic spirit of the dream-world, in which those solemn and incredible conversations take place, cannot be properly conveyed. There have been radio performances of Alice, however, during which I longed for a plain straightforward reading; and as a lover of this classic, I find that it is not every radjo actor whose rendering of the Dormouse or the White Rabbit would satisfy my imagination. I have the same complaint to make about the readings from Alice as I had with The King of the Golden River. Both these programmes were put on at 9.30 p.m. when only adults (one hopes) would be listening. I thought of the audience of delighted children whom these programmes should have charmed.