Word Spinning

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 945, 20 September 1957, Page 27

Word Spinning

CONFESS, that at first, Emlyn Williams’s tour de force of representing Charles Dickens, and then in this physiognomy, to impersonate all his best-known characters, did not appeal to me. I could not help asking the question posed to the man, who had, by great labour, carved the Lord’s Prayer on the head of a pin: a simple and devastating "Why?" I knew, of course, of Mr Williams’s great success

in London and New York, but I could still see nothing in the whole idea more tHan pointless virtuosity. I have now listened to three of the programmes currently running on the National Programme. My report is that as an artist and a technician, Williams is staggering. The vocal control, intricate and subtle variations of pace, the range of feeling, and the power to evoke -atmosphere, all add up to an amazing display. I had omitted to recall, you see, that Williams, next to Gielgudy has the finest voice on the English stage, and

that he is one of its very best actors. He told, a Sunday or so ago, a Dickens. ghost story, called "The Signalman." It was literally, I ask you to believe, on a somnolent Sunday afternoon, hairraising. The room was full of characters going about on spectral

_ _ apa ee SR PRES, Ong i Tp -cen do this by voice alone, what will it be like when he visits us in the flesh next year? I leave it to you to judge.

B.E.G.

M.