THE WEEK’S RADIO Ibsen’s “Ghosts”

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29272, 2 August 1960, Page 10

THE WEEK’S RADIO Ibsen’s “Ghosts”

When Ibsen’s play “Ghosts” received its t first London performance in 189 L it was greeted with a storm of hysterical abuse, among which “disgusting representation” and “literary carrion” were two of the milder epithets. Twenty-three years passed before the Lord Chamberlain allowed a public performance.

The change in public opinion is attributable partly to George Bernard Shaw, Ibsen's disciple, but mainly to Ibsen himself. Today “Ghosts” seem to be a work with a specific and didactic moral, and Ibsen is regarded as a great playwright, “Ghosts” is his most smashing attack on conventional respectability—the respectabality that shows a good face to the outer world and wears a very ugly look indoors. The scene is in a country house in western Norway in the autumn of 1881, where Mrs Alving, upright, just and virtuous, is methodically honouring the memory of her dead husband. Mrs Alving has always been whet her pastor friend (whom she loved) called her “duty and obligations.” Her son, Oswald, is back from -Paris, where he has been studying art, and he is sick in mind and body, suffering from a then unmentionable disease which was a legacy from his father. Apart from its sheer quality of shock, “Ghosts”, is'one of Ibsen’s most remarkable feats of dramatic craftsmanship. The argument is so close. The dramatic steps sty beautifully built and the general indignation about established respectability so intense that “Ghosts” is one of the landmarks not only of European drama, but of European thought. A 8.8. C. World Theatre production of "Ghosts” will be heard from the YC’s at 8 p.m. on Friday.

Pasternak Looks Back

Some 30 years ago Boris Pasternak wrote “Safe Conduct,” which he later described as an experiment in autobiography. In the middle 1950’5, after finishing “Dr. Zhivago,” he wrote a new autobiographical essay. It has not been published in the Soviet Union, but an English translation by Manya Harari wad published last year. At 8.36 p.m. on Sunday listeners to 3YC will hear Marius Goring, the distinguished actor, reading Pasternak’s reminsicences of the day Tolstoy diedDr. Johnson

James Boswell’s “Life of Johnson” is regarded as probably the best biography in the English language and is the chief reason why the memory of Dr. Samuel Johnson has been so carefully preserved. In it Boswell not only

gave the facts of his friend’s life and career, but also wrote as full an account as he could of Johnson’s talk, for which the great man was famous in his own time. In the BB C. series of “Conversations With Dr. Johnson” (3YC, 7.43 tonight), Boswell, impersonated by his fellow Scot, James McKechnie, can be heard drawing out Johnson by judicious questioning, and occasionally by remarks and interjections that were intended to provoke the stinging and severe retorts, heralded by the booming “Sir!” that have become one of the most famous characteristics of this talented, humane and very human figure. The series was prepared for commemoration of the 250th anniversary of Johnson’s birth on September 18, 1709. * Montreal Childhood Ted Allan’s play about his childhood in Montreal, “Lies My Father Told Me” (ZB’s, 9.16 p.m., Sunday), was originally a short story. Since its adaptation it has been broadcast in Canada and England ’ and has appeared on 8.8. C. television. “When the story was first published.” the author wrote in the “Radio Times,” “my father read it and was very confused. ‘I wasn’t the one who lied/ he protested. ‘lt was your grandfather who was always telling whoppers.’ The truth of the matter is that my grandfather did stand over six feet in his stockinged feet, did have a voice that sounded like thunder, was my idea of what God looked like and did have a horse. My father objected to my grandfather on various grounds. First of all. the horse was stabled just, next door to the kitchen, in the back yard. This created a smell in our house. My father was very scientific and concerned about germs. My grandfather worried about other things and was very religious. Because my grandfather knew how to stimulate my imagination I believed everything he told Me. My father uttered ‘facts’.” The ’Flu The 8.8. C. documentary, “Inquiry into Influenza” (YA’s, 3.30 pjn., Sunday), is described as “a sober inquiry into the causes and control of the disease which in 1918-19 killed between 10 million and 20 million persons in the greatest of historic plagues.” The knowledge that this cduld happen again- stimulated intensive scientific research, the achievements of which are discussed in the programme. Why does influenza continue to strike, again and again? Why do tragic epidemics occur from time to time outside the usual influenza “season"? What are the advantages of vaccine inoculations? These,are some of

the questions answered in the programme. ’ Dickens Serial “Dombey and Son” was published in serial form in 1847, at the same time as Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair,” and there was rivalry between the two books, although many more copies were sold of the Dickens than of the Thackeray. Carlyle, the great historian, described the relief with which he turned from the “terrible cynicism” of “Vanity Fair” to the cheerful geniality of “Dombey and Son.” H. Oldfield Box, who adapted “Dombey, and Son” as a serial Jor the 8.8. C,, says that as it is a very long novel “necessarily many of its characters and subsidiary themes have been excluded from my adaptation. This serial shows the events of the story especially from Florence’s viewpoint, but such delightful characters as Mr Toots, Susan Nipper and, above all, the inimitable Captain Cuttie appear in full action.” The first episode of “Dombey and Son” will be broadcast from the YA’s at 1.30 p.m. on Sunday.