Before and After
NYONE who had read Christopher Sykes’s Answer to Question 33 or his Character and Situation would have
expected his radio script for Return Journey to Berlin to be full of the sense of place, intelligent and shrewdly perceptive. The programme was all these things, and the BBC- documentary method of selecting appropriate noises and dimly-heard conversations as a background, as well as Sebastian Shaw’s incisive voice, helped to make _ the feature extremely telling. The same economy’ of style and gift for dialogue which mark Mr. Sykes’s short stories came out clearly here, especially in the convincing scene which re-created a prewar conversation he had with a German family about thé respective merits of James Joyce and Bernard Shaw, with the Germans stubbornly insisting that the English didn’t really like Shaw, because he was an Irishman! This, and later conversations, quite free from burlesque, concerning the British "regard for tradition" and the German "regard for the future" bore out his suggestion that Germans rarely discuss but "talk for victory." References to present-day. Berlin, touching and ironical, blended with his recollections of the past to show us, in a mature and thought-provoking programme, the differences between then and now- and the significant
simuarities.
J.C.
R.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19500224.2.19.3
Bibliographic details
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 557, 24 February 1950, Page 10
Word count
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206Before and After New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 557, 24 February 1950, Page 10
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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.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
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