Strange play about First World War

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33032, 27 September 1972, Page 4

Strange play about First World War

Monday night’s viewing was of very little moment —one of the least rewarding evenings for some time. After the blood - thirsty Borderers had done their thing again, there was a weak Ronnie Barker programme, a strange little play, and a lot of sport. The play was “A Question of Honour” by Don Shaw. The question really was why it was written. It told the tale of a simple farmer, a private in the First World War, who killed a German with a I knife, in contravention of the existing code of ethics. And at his court martial, he disclosed that after losing his rifle and being shot at by the German, he had feigned death, then killed his enemy. This was a very practical course of action, by modern standards, but it was an even worse breach of the rules of

conduct and the soldier, facing death from a firing squad, committed suicide. It was a rebuke of the inflexibility of the Army system in 1914, and of its strange code of honour. Some might have regarded it an interesting look at the past, but this viewer, at any rate, found it a little pointless. Nigel Green as the austere, correct but sympathetic colonel looked very much the part, and Laurence Carter was effective as the simple soldier, barely able to read. It all seemed like a lot of faded photographs in a tattered album.

The best of "Grandstand” was in the piece on the amateur golf championships at Waitikiri. Action and scenic shots, and interviews with leading players were happily combined into a firstrate piece of reporting. But Barker was sadly below standard, and although it was through no fault of the N.Z.8.C., the hour of the All Black Rugby trials was singularly dull. Even the avid Rugby enthusiast must have found it wearisome, and so was the commentary. If “feeding the scrum” and “feeding the line-out” were welcome absentees, they had their friends there, the most irritating of them being “on the burst” which has become a very tattered phrase indeed. If it had been heard just once more, several viewers might well have attacked their sets with old football boots. — PANDORA.