Love Among the Classics

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 822, 29 April 1955, Page 23

Love Among the Classics

K TATURE, you may remem- ' ber, had wrote Gentleman with so fair a hand in every line of Uncle Toby Shandy’s countenance that even his tarnished, gold-laced hat and huge cockade of flimsy taffeta became him. He was an expert on scarps and bastions and tavelins and similar aspects of the science of fortification-natura] enough, too, since he was wounded in the groin at the siege of Namur-while his reasons for wishing to enter into the holy state of matrimony’ were, as he informed the widow -Wadman, who was thebrideelect, fully set out in the Book of Common Prayer. The story of two middle-aged inhabitants of England in the 1760’s, in which the ancient arts of making war and making love get entangled, will be heard in the BBC series, Love Scenes of Long Ago, six half hour programmes bringing together lovers of the past in dramatic readings from famous English works written between 1675 and 1850. Uncle Toby is, of course, a central figure in Laurence Sterne’s novel, The Lite and Opinions of Tristram Shandy;

r his part is read by Norman Shelley and that of Widow Wadman by Vivienne Chatterton. Mr. Darcy was undoubtedly a snob. First he behaved insolently towards the Bennet girls at the ball. Then he had the neck to propose to Elizabeth in terms which left no doubt that he thought (as they say) he could do better for himself. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice fits perfectly the formula for a women’s magazine story, happy ending and all, yet is rightly regarded as one of the finest. of English novels. Elizabeth’s first meeting with Darcy, her rejection of him, and their final reunion ore also treated in Love Scenes of Long 80, Another novel from which romantic extracts have been dramatised is R. D. Blackmore’s Lorna Doone, from which we see the first childhood encounter of Lorna and John Ridd and _ their meeting again seven years later when John crashes. through two sets of social barriers, equally formidablefirst, those erected by a gang of Scottish thieves, and then those erected by a family of Scottish nobles. Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa provides another programme in which the heroine writes a letter describing the events on

the night of the fire caused by Mrs. Sinclair’s cook-maid, and there are two love scenes from Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, The first of these is Tom’s meeting with Sophia Western before he is turned out by his benefactor; the second the happy ending when Tom returns from his adventures, amorous and otherwise. Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre gives Rochester’s ‘declaration of love to Jane, her learning of the existence of his mad

wife, and the final Happy reunion. Miss Matty Jenkins and Thomas Holbrook love and part and meet for the last time as they approach old age in Mrs. Gaskell’s Cranford. Love Scenes from Long Ago was adapted for radio and produced by Raymond Raikes. It will start from 2YC at 9.30 p.m. on May 7, from 4YC at 8.30 p.m. on May 3, and later from the other YC stations, oe