CAUTIONARY TALE
SUSPECT that it may have been Noel Coward’s memorable film Brief Encounter that set the tone and pattern for a number of post-war stories about broken or damaged marriagesfor example, in recent novels by Nigel Balchin and William Sansom, or (transferred to a rather different context) Graham Greene. Chetham Strode, who has already shown a flair for the topical play in The Guinea.Pig, has written his own variant in Background (heard from 1YC), a study in the effect of divorce on children. Set in the Nigel Balchin country-rising barrister with country home-it showed barrister’s wife about to make fresh start with barrister’s lifelong friend, Uncle Bill. Only the three children seemed at all upset, and everyone was being frightfully civilised ("Of course, we can still be friends’’), until the fourteen-year-old son let daylight into the situation by plugging dear old Bill with a pea-rifie. As a cautionary tale about divorce, the play nak its point with precision and force; and the NZBS production was thoroughly expert. Nevertheless, the spectacle of high-minded selfishness in the upper-income brackets may perhaps induce in the rude, uncultured listener a sense of silent mirth.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19530626.2.18.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 728, 26 June 1953, Page 10
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191CAUTIONARY TALE New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 728, 26 June 1953, 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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