A Blank, My Lord ....
I wonder, by the way, whether a knowledge of Shakespeare's stage would have helped the producer and actors of the recent television Twelfth Night ; but I'm tempted to think that they may have been beyond all succour. My regard for the enthusiasts of Alexandra Palace is such that I take their failures as personal disappointments. This Twelfth Night was most laxly cast, and there was little fresh or inventive about its staging. The nerves frayed at the cacchina- tions of Toby Belch, for it is always vexing when an actor amuses himself more than he does you ; and the delivery of the lines had more than the usual scamped and slip-shod modernity. A pity.
I salute the serial dramatisation (vividly done by Mr. Rex Rienits) of Boldrewood's Robbery Under Arms. that Australian classic of the 1880s, with its Captain Starlight as an engaging desperado with the Robin Hood touch. (Strangely, I had never encountered the book itself till last year.) It is the Australian answer to The Virginian; and its cattle-thieves and horsemen and bush-rangers triumphantly prove that the Wild West is a scene of pastoral innocence compared with (shall we say ?) the Wild Wagga-Wagga. It comes excellently over the air.
Previous page
