WILDE IN AUSTRALIA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 897, 12 October 1956, Page 5

WILDE IN AUSTRALIA

Sir-wWell, now we have it. An Australian Goon Show. I knew that it must come-they have been moving so indomitably in that direction; but they have surpassed all reasonable expectation with the perfect, the unadulterated, goonery of this the latest of the subgoon series known as Surf Radio Theatre. Wilde wrote a novel about a fashionably beautiful young man called Dorian Gray, who fell in love, in the course of things, with a beautiful and talented young Shakesperian actress. They fall in love in spite of social barriers, The beautiful young man takes two of his fashionable friends to witness the talent and beauty of his love. Alas, new-found love has made the girl indifferent to the play; having come to feel the beauty of life itself, she suddenly finds acting a sad pretence, and so acts badly for the first time. The reaction of one of Dorian’s friends: ". . . one of the loveliest creatures that he had ever seen... shy grace... the voice was exquisitebut from the point of view of tone it was absolutely false." So. What do the Australians do? Fearing that the great colonial radio public may to some extent miss the nice distinction between an "exquisite, but false" tone and their wn habitual unexquisite and false ones, they have the girl SING instead; and to make the distinction quite clear (the girl is Common, sée, dear; actresses didn’t have the cachet they have today: the guys, they’re aristocracy, get it?) they have her sing in the voice of a dribbling village idiot, old style. An’ ya know what they have \her sing? A Shakespearian sonnet, maybe? Nah. They have her sing, in a sorta Aussie Cockney, ‘"Goo-baie li’l yaller boid .. ." And that where Mr. Wilde had the "exquisite voice" speaking "Sweet, goodnight/This bud of love by summer's ripening breath/may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet." And there’s the bit where Dorian has murdered a man, gets a friend to dispose of the body, looks into the

room which had held the body, and stutters, "Where-where- is the-the-THING?" Just like in a Karloff movie, see, And instead of Lord Henry saying "She’s very lovely ... she’s beautiful," they get him to say, sorta snooty like, "a pretty enough little thing." An’ all like that, see. Now, let us not fail to credit others in the field-almost any Australian (and, be it boasted, New Zealand) rendition of an English society play is commendable goonery; but this! I’m afraid they’ve left us far behind. I do, however, suggest to the persons who adapted the novel, that they have missed their most profitable vocation. Have done with these merely verbal caricatures and plunge into the rich visual field of the strip cartoon. Your metier, fellas. Why, you’ve got all of English literature before you yet. Bhink of Shakespeare, alone. And if you are really capable of maintaining the highgoon level of this latest sample of your work-why, men who knows (up portentous music, please), you may even attain the FILLUMS! HOLLYwood guys!

LOVE THAT SOAP

(Auckland).