Missing Playwrights
NE of the most disappointing features of recent NZBS drama has been the preponderance of adaptations and BBC scripts, and the almost total absence of locally-written plays. We have never had many good New Zealand radio dramatists; but it is hard to believe that we have no writers who can do at least as well as the BBC Consider Your Verdict, a singularly pointless mystery play without a mystery (1YC). What has happened to John Gundry, for instanée, who used to produce extremely able radio plays? I wonder whether the paucity of New Zealand radio drama isn’t due less to the absence of talent than to the fact that it is cheaper to pay someone to "adapt" Shaw, Shakespeare and Congreve than to purchase
original scripts. If so, this is a distinctly retrograde step. The simple fact is that of the 12 plays broadcast from Auckland National stations during the past month, half have been BBC scripts er productions, and half NZBS "adaptations." All of which suggests that the NZBS is not breaking its neck to find local playwrights.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540528.2.21.6
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 775, 28 May 1954, Page 10
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181Missing Playwrights New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 775, 28 May 1954, Page 10
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