Vas You Dere, Sharlie?
AM quite unable to determine whether the NZBS intended Potash and Perlmutter to be accepted in_its own right as entertainment, or as an example of an outmoded curiosity. Misleadingly described as "one of the classic comedies of the American theatre," this
trivial old dialect piece was played so dead-pan that, if it was offered as a "specimen," there was nothing to indicate it. Potash and Perlmutter, like Abie’s Irish Rose, belongs to a period when patronising dialect comedies, with sentimental plots, were acceptable popular material in polyglot New York, The two wrangling,, friendly-enemy Jewish partners in a clothing business no longer satisfy a less naive view of reality nor tastes sharpened by more searching presentations of racial characteristics. And the ridiculous story derives from the brash popular theatre of the late 19th century. Selwyn Toogood and Alan Jarvis did what they could with subordinate roles; but as Potash and Perlmutter, Bernard Beeby and Roy Leywood hammed outrageously. Given these stereotyped parts, I suppose they could do little else. But I am not one of those who find corn and ham a palatable radio meal.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19570719.2.11.4
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 936, 19 July 1957, Page 8
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188Vas You Dere, Sharlie? New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 936, 19 July 1957, Page 8
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