Two Plays

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 518, 27 May 1949, Page 10

Two Plays

| FR VERY time someone offers me a satiric comedy I am instantly on my | guard, since funny bones are notoriously | individualistic and one man’s humour leaves another dead-pan. The Return of Mr. Winkleberry from 2YA last Sun- | day, however, made better use than |most of its opportunities for both com_edy and satire. Squire Winkleberry, born | 1720, and inconsiderately excavated by /a time-bomb on the churchyard, walks back into his old home under the impression that he is still its rightful owner. Faced with a choice between drippinged potatoes and butterless bread he wants to start a revolution to overthrow a Government capable of introducing rationing, and is restrained with difficulty by his descendants from, shooting a sheep for dinner. Finally overworked Death gets round to remembering him, and Mr. Winkleberry is put back in the churchyard, leaving his descendants to ponder some 'of the more engaging aspects of 18th Century living. Yes, Mr. Winkleberry was distinctly worth resurrecting. But even satirical comedy has nothing as radio entertainment on, sudden death, and Edward Harding’s nice little number Out of the Smoke had two of them. Trains do even more for radio thrillers than for screen ones, their sense of urgency and their familiar yet always ominous noises carry even the most humdrum of themes along to a portentous conclusion. There was perhaps too much smoke in the Edward Harding play, but the fact that both its beginning and its end took place

— in a railway, carriage ensured that it would reach its destination with dramatic values intact.