Knights of the Round Table
LISTENED last week to a round table discussion on The Lady’s Not for Burning from 2YC, and found it so unsatisfactory that this column must bear the burden of my discomfort. It was not that the three speakers had nothing to say: several very good points were made, but in such a bumbling, roundabout, tedious fashion that one’s spirit wilted. I, too, have served on such panels, have bumbled with the rest; what can be more intimidating than the gaunt microphone and obdurate red light? What more alarming than to find the discussion sucdenly leaving the rails for some quite unpremeditated track? And now, may I say that
they do these things much better in Auckland? There, a panel faces an audience, which most speakers find stimulating; a period of formal exchanges is recorded, and then a full discussion with the audience can proceed until the last tram or lights out. Can Wellington not run to this? A suitable hall is available, the Library Lecture Hall, and the occasion has something of the glamour of being recorded. There seems no reason why the citizens of Wellington should not find it as enthralling an outing, as clearly they do in Auckland. And I have a further suggestion, which Auckland may note if she wishes. I would like to see on every panel discussing the theatre, someone either completely new to it, or with a known aversion to the drama. A devil’s : advocate, if you wish: thess, antithesis. | Who knows, some quite remarkable syn-_ thesis might emerge. A certain acrimony | and testiness gives a discussion piquancy and flavour. It also prevents our experts from smugly assuming that their world is everybody’s. How such a person could be chosen for the moment defeats me, but I feel sure there is a resourceful officer in the NZBS who. could find a way. One last plea: could not the reviewers of productions by the New Zealand Players be on a national hook-up? The company ranges from end to end of the Dominion, why review it separately in each town? I suggest either review the play where it opens, or have a potpourri from the four centres, cleverly dubbed in, with eack expert contradicting the previous speaker. Liveliness,
above all.
B.E.G.
M.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19550218.2.19.5
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 812, 18 February 1955, Page 11
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381Knights of the Round Table New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 812, 18 February 1955, Page 11
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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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