The Investigator

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 913, 8 February 1957, Page 12

The Investigator

EFORE I go on to the larger aspects of this most distinguished piece of radio, a few cavils. It seemed odd to me that characters such as Judge Jeffreys, Cotton Mather, Torquemada and Titus Oates should be Up Here with the elect; if they slipped through the immigration committee, an investigation was overdue. And when Chopin dropped out of the celestial quartet for writing the Revolutionary Study, I was pained that Beethoven, of all people, the composer of the Eroica Symphony, if of nothing else, should support the candidature of Otto Schmink. There were too many Karl Marx jokes, or perhaps they were not sufficiently speedy to keep up the tone of heady surprise which the programme almost consistently maintained. With that, my grouches are done. The Investiéator is a wonderful achievement, the more so, in these cautious days, for being a programme authorised and produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Commission. Questions were asked in the House at Ottawa, and well they might be, since the satire is deadly, and the character of the Investigator which emerges, poisonous. The serious heart of the piece is concerned with that detestable side of human nature which regards the scotching of the Devil as a superior activity to the unitive love of God which, if practised persistently, will always defeat the Prince of Darkness anyway. But the lower road has proved a seductive pathway to some of the most energetic talents in history, and their careers

have been marked by the anguish of thousands. In time of madness, such as societies periodically experience; their activities can command large public support, with what melancholy results we have in these last few years witnessed. I have the deepest admiration for the wit, perception, courage, and _ essential humanity of Reuben Ship’s magnificent piece, and the story of its reception in America is most heartening. The Investigator is a superb reductio ad absurdum of all inquisitorial techniqués, and the basis of this one in psycho pathological promptings was cleverly and _ subtly stated. How far humour can prevail over organised dictatorship is uncertain: not far, perhaps, but that it did so in the less constricted atmosphere of the United States is a tribute to this brilliant writer, and hardly less so, to the Ameri-

can people.

B. E. G.

M.