Improbably Resourceful
’M afraid that 1YA’s new series The Affairs of Harlequin doesn’t sttike me as the, kind of thing that is likely, in a manneér of speakitig, to Hold children from play and old méh ftom the chimney cornér. The first episode introduced an improbably tesodurcéful Mr. Harlequin, who quotés his dwn translations of Chinése poétry, usé8 "old buy" in evéry seritétice, and is sbine kihd of free-lance secfét agent and ofié-mian Spy-catcher ahd crook-eliminator; dnd involved him in a dog-eared plot set in Prague and thick with murdered couriersy beautiful female agents ahd suave Greek thugs. A compound, it appeared, of Manning Coles; Frahcis Beeding and E. Phillips Oppenhéim, with dashes of "The Saint" and Philo Vance thrown in. This kind of thing is very hard to do well, unless it is slick, witty and a bit tongue-in-the-cheek; but in this case neither Sefipt-wfiter nor cast had dnything new’ to contribute. I can’t say that I really caré whéther Mr. Harlequin’s next assignment takes him to: Vienna or Timbuktu.
J. C.
R.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540423.2.23.4
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 770, 23 April 1954, Page 10
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174Improbably Resourceful New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 770, 23 April 1954, 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.
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