Thirty-Minute Theatre Produced Fine Play

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32394, 5 September 1970, Page 3

Thirty-Minute Theatre Produced Fine Play

Leslie Sands and Reg Lye combined their talents with marked success in “Ships of the Line”, a 20-minute play (in the Thirty-Minute Theatre series) which gave Thursday night’s programme its best moments. They were outstanding performances in a gripping little study of two ageing men. Leslie Sands is a familiar figure in television fare, but this viewer can not recall having seen Reg Lye before. The quality of their acting was superb, the story was told with conviction, and with a reticence, the Americans can seldom find in a play of this sort—if they attempt it Sands played Willie Thomson, retired seaman, a quiet stolid man who seems happy building a fleet of model warships for a naval museum and thus finding a hope of immortality. Years before his shipmate Charlie had taken his wife Amy from him: Charlie calls to tell him Amy is dead. Willie was an admirable character, Charlie a dreadful, whining little fellow. And the play was simply a study of these two, a comparison of the content of the man doing something creative, the bitter unhappiness of a man leaving nothing behind him. All the action took place in Willie’s modest quarters,

but in this simple setting a strongly dramatic situation was developed expertly. This was excellent entertainment. The rest of the evening was not of this quality. There was another “ironside” story, “Love My Enemy,” and the enemy seemed to .consist largely of some colourful characters who had simply stayed on from the previous evening’s “Hawaii Five-O." It was a pretty ponderous piece, rather less interesting than this series is as a rule. “Gallery" had a couple of interesting items. Mr Marshall went his calm way, with Geoff Walker, through an explanation of the changes in immigration policy, exploiting his familiar gift for refusing to allow any question to seem a searching one. This current affairs programme has had few more interesting visitors than Professor James Ritchie, or more interesting topics than the discussion on parental influences. This is a subject on which not very many New Zealanders reflect very often, and it was startling to hear that New Zealand fathers are parental drop-outs, that* the women are slaves. Professor Ritchie, professor of psychology at Waikato University. was lucid and lively and i Brian Edwards, fortunately, [let him go his way. I The “Journey to the Unknown” series ended with a bizarre story, “The New People.” Not even the murders and black mass, nor the presence of Robert Reed from

“The Defenders” could lift this above the mediocre. It was not even respectably frightening.—PANDOßA.