Galsworthy's "Strife"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 727, 19 June 1953, Page 21

Galsworthy's "Strife"

HEN John Galsworthy’s play Strife was first produced on the London stage in 1909, trade unions had not yet been accepted in the way they are today, and this dramatic picture of the fight between Capital and Labour excited everyone. The scene is a tin-plate works, and the leading figures, equally sincere in their views, are the chairman

of the works and the spokesmen for the men. Galsworthy, with his deep human feelings and striving after complete fairness, gives every aspect of the dispute, moving from directors’ meetings to tke labour leader’s cottage and to a mass meeting of the men. A new radio version of Strife, recorded from a BBC production of the play, is to be heard from National stations during the next few months, starting from 4YZ at 8.0 p.m, on Friday, June 26. In it Ernest Jay plays the part of John Anthony, the chairman of the company, and Deryck Guyler is David Roberts, the men’s leader. The Clock is a play of a rather different kind which will start the rounds of National stations from 3YC at 9.30 p.m. on Saturday, June 27. The author, Elleston Trevor, gives listeners an impression of the feelings of a murderer who leaves his victim dead in an empty flat in London and then arrives at his country home some hours later to be told that the same man has. been knocked down and killed by a bus not far away. The clock of the title has an important part in this play-the crime has been planned to an exact schedule, and the clock as narrator records the fortunes and misfortunes of the characters as the story develops. The Clock, one of a series specially written for radio, is acted by members of the BBC Drama Repertory Company and produced by Val Gielgud, BBC Head of Drama,