Dickens on the Air
| ISTENING to Dickens abridged is no substitute for reading him; yet I think radio adaptations of his work are often more successful, in the sense of being truer to the original, than films. Films reveal too much, Pecksniff played by an actor on the screen would inevitably become, to some degree, a rian; conveyed only by Donald Wolfit’s voice he remains. a grotesque. When the voices are as good as they are in this BEC serial of Martin Chuzzlewit they can add something to a reader’s conception of Dickens, as Phiz’s illustrations do. Besides Mr. Pecksniff there’s a Jonas Chuzzlewit, who shows the authentic Dickens horror, and Gladys Young’s miraculously Gampish Mrs. Gamp. I’ve heard Gladys Young on _ discussion panels, and a more comfortable, motherly person you couldn’t hope to know. She sounds the same in A Life of Bliss, And yet she creates so frighteningly these gruesome females-Mrs. Gamp, the sinister Mrs. Brown in Dombey and Son, Trollope’s Mrs, Proudie, I know it’s naive to associate an actress with the characters she plays, but I can’t help wondering of these radically discrepant versions of Gladys Youngwhich is the player, and which the part?
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19560907.2.31.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 892, 7 September 1956, Page 18
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198Dickens on the Air New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 892, 7 September 1956, Page 18
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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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