Memorable Performance

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 929, 31 May 1957, Page 20

Memorable Performance

()NE reward of regular listening to NZBS plays is that occasionally one hears a really outstanding performance, which lifts the character above that pretty high level to which the NZBS regulars have accustomed us. For me, the playing of Linda Hastings as Mrs Sampson-Box, a_ tyrannical, self-centred magistrate, in Rex Frost’s Small Hotel (YA link) was quite exceptional. The play, a pleasant enough light piece about the staff in an English country inn, did not seem promising material for striking acting; yet Linda Hastings made the dragon a substantial, believable and consistent person, uniting the comic and the pathetic, the touching and the farcical. Now and then, her voice reminded me of Edith Evans being incredulous about handbags, but the whole effect was completely individual. Hardly less successful was Roy Leywood, who also adapted the play for radio, as the Machiavellian waiter, a descendant of Shaw’s William. These two played together with such verve and relish as to overshadow an exceptionally competent cast. On the stage, a first-rate performance may redeem a trivial play; in this case, I shall’ remember Mrs Sampson-Box after I have forgotten more substantial plays without her. UN Whimsy [N one respect, at least, UN Radio features avoid the pitfalls of most propaganda. They are never didactically solemn. And yet by using wit, fantasy and whimsy, they do manage to put acToss serious messages. I the Diplomat (1YC) was thoroughly good entertainment, not just because it used the voices of Orson Welles, Michael Redgrave, Basil Rathbone and other notables, but because of its vivacity and Spirited satire. We were conducted down the ages, from the days of Neanderthal man to the present, by Michael Redgrave as the "essential diplomat," and shown, in a series of slyly malicious scenes, the earlier conception of diplomacy as How to Put it Across the Other Fellow, Without Actually Losing Your Block. Out of this 1066 and All That phantasmagoria came solidly and convincingly the idea that conditions of modern life made integrity in international dealings essential, and render the Art of Diplomatship as obsolete as chain-mail, A touch of Goonery in some scenes, the training of medieval heralds, for instance, made this a delightfully unexpected feature. I wonder how many peole, frozen off by the austere note "UN Programme" missed a programme that was as entertaining as if was

meaningful.

J.C.

R.