Out of the Past

New Zealand Listener, Volume 39, Issue 989, 1 August 1958, Page 15

Out of the Past

HE sense of the past is very strong '" in two plays to be heard next week; in one ghosts from a century-old shipwreck help a disillusioned man to find peace, and in the other an old man tells a strange story which effectively destroys the peace of mind of the listener. Thunder Rock is set in a lighthouse on Lake Michigan, where a ship of immigrants was lost without survivors. To this lighthouse comes a journalist trying to withdraw from a world drifting into chaos. He finds the logbook, and conjures up the ghosts of those immigtants, who like himself had been trying to escape from the intolerance, poverty and misery of their world, a world which had rejected their discoveries. The journalist, from his place in time, could see that the very things they were fighting for had been on the verge of acceptance-that they had given up the struggle too soon. In countering their cries of despair he finds his own answer. Thunder Rock was written by Robert Ardrey on the Me of World War II, but it is equally apposite today. This new production by. William Austin is for ZB Sunday Show- case on August 10. On his 85th’ birthday old Martin Boyce tells the vicar a most remarkable story. Whether it is true, or whether he had intended it for an unpublished novel is uncertain, but it contains all the ingredients for a good murder story,

complete with mystery, romance and moonlight, and a well at the bottom of the garden, a well which is certainly not there today. Hedley Goodall (right) is heard as the old author in Mr Boyce’s Birthday, a BBC production to be heard

from 1XN on Wednesday, August 6, and from 2YA on the following night. In lighter vein, the problems of the impoverished English gentry and their love-lorn children aré popular themes for comedy, and from the YAs and 4YZ on Monday night comes Fit for Heroes, the latest in this line. Lord Wimpole is objecting to living in a prefab, having sold his Hall to the Independent Welfare Party, although his wife approves of the labour-saving aspect of their tiny dwelling. The Party’s election candidate, an earnest young man, is invited to stay in the prefab by the Wimpole’s daughter, an equally earnest and politically-minded young woman. Then the dashing Army-type son brings his sweet and capable American fiancee to congest the accommodation still further. Tempers fail and_ trouble threatens, until the butler takes a hand with the electioneering and the accommodation problems, Fit for Hetoes was produced by Bernatd Beeby arid features William Austin and Davina Whitehouse as Lord and Lady Wimpole, and Selwyn Toogood as the faithful family retainer.