If Dickens Had Broadcast.

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 29, 31 January 1930, Page 7

If Dickens Had Broadcast.

As Versatile an Entertainer as a Writer

ANNOUNCEMENTS to the effect that a Dickens night is to be featured from both Australian and New Zealand stations appear elsewhere. Now that attention has been focussed upon this master, not a few listeners will try to imagine what the result would have been had Dickens actually been able to broadcast. Suppose he had been born a century later. Suppose that instead of finding himself growing up in a period .when enraged workers were smashing factory machinery, when the triumph of coal and iron was only beginning, when Chartism was rife, and when imprisonment for begging was common, he had found himself in an atmosphere of jazz, cocktails, women in business, impressionism in art, musicians writing symphonic works descriptive of football matches-what influence would it have had on the development of his genius? , It is an interesting speculation. For without a doubt, Dickens,would have been. as unexcelled over the éther as he was in the medium which he was forced by Fate to choose. He would make an ideal broadcaster. He was a great speaker. One has only to read some of his collected speeches to realise his command of word and thought, and those who heard him tell of the hold he had on his audience, compelling them to tears or laughter. In the present broadcasting programmes there are one or two artistes who seem to have caught the public imagination by providing material peculiarly suitable for performance in front of the microphone, and in almost every. case their success can be attributed to one factor. It is almost always because they take their material from real life, subjecting it, of course, to the rigid selection which is the secret of all art. ’ The Ideal Broadcaster. T is only thus, by taking a widely human attitude, by embracing ail the little comedies and tragedies which are likely to come the way of the average man and woman, that it is possible to appeal to so diverse a body of people as the immense radio public. The ideal broadcaster must be a mirror in which is refiected humorously, whimsieally, tragically-ii does not matter much which-the world in which he moves and lives and. has his being. , If one takés this to be a roughly accurate definition of the really successful radio entertainer, it inevitably follows that Dickens would have felt quite as much at home in front of a microphone as he did in his study with pen and paper. He was as much at ‘home as he was at his reading desk when he thrilled his audiences with his rendering of the murder of Nancy by Bill Sikes-and, roused them to roars of laughter when he presented Pickwick, Sam or Tony Weller. His rendering of the "Christmas Carol" will never be forgotten by those who heard him. "So Sanely British." For he was, above all, a mirror in which was perfectly reflected the age in which he lived; its characters,

its institutions, its. virtues and _ its vices. He took for the raw material of his novels those things which, by the very nature of his audience, the broadcaster must choose. He portrayed the everyday lives of everyday people of his own generation, just those kind of people whose descendants now switch on the wireless every: night in their countless thousands. He had the faculty of reflecting the life of his day and creating characters, which even if sometimes a little exaggerated, yet live and are vividly representative of their times. His whole character and outlook, so sanely British, would endear him to listeners if, by some miracle, he could be projected into the twentieth century. And what a wide field he would find to-day for his wholesome satire and the cheerful optimism which he could show even in the face of the depths of misery! | He would have no difficulty in finding modern’ counterparts for Mr. Bumble, that parochial functionary who could be human but only showed it at very rare moments; or for the improvident Mr, Micawber; or even for that humbug, Mr. Pecksniff. His hatred for shams and his reforming zeal would find no lack of subjects today. But where he reached one person by his novels, he could to-day reach fifty via the microphone. Would he be the sort of man to miss such an opportunity ? In any. case he was as successful aurally in‘his own day as he was in the medium of the written word. His readings and his lecture tours met with great receptions wherever he went, indicating that he had the makings of a wireless "personality." Byen to-day, nearly sixty years after his death, I find no lack of interest in my own stage interpretations of his work. It seems impossible that any man could achieve a reputation, in his own lifetime, more brilliant and widespread than his. One cannot help feeling, however, that had his genius flourished a century later, his radio reputation would have been even greater!