Coffee and Corn
\ILLIAM AUSTIN’S Won't You Come In? seems designed to appeal to lower-middle-brow listeners in late middle age, since it deals heavily in nostalgia and bits of gossip, and the corn is often as high as an elephant’s eye. Out of recordings of the inoffensive café-music kind, with an _ occasional piece of ancient comedy and the odd novelty, plus the rattle of coffee-spoons, an attempt is made, to create the illusion of a cosy half-hour with Mr. Austin in his drawing-room. It is clear that the session has its following, but, after hearing it several times now, I am forced to the conclusion that it is a waste of Mr. "Austin’s considerable abilities. Not only is the script colourless, repetitive and devoid of wit and originality, but the compére’s tricks, those of a practised radio actor, become, to my ear, tryingly artificialthe little calculated pause, the suave aside, the unconvincing coffee-drinking
ceremony. I feel that the whole notion of the session and the style of its presentation belong to the earlier days of radio rather than to 1956, Possibly a better script might lift it up somewhat, but at present it seems decidedly below the standard of programmes thought worthy of consuming a linked half-hour
every week.
J. C.
R.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 902, 16 November 1956, Page 18
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212Coffee and Corn New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 902, 16 November 1956, Page 18
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