To radio with love

Press, 26 February 1981, Page 15

To radio with love

r —i Radio Heath Lees

Having held forth last week on the subject of | interchange from one mei dium to another, I ap- | proached Monday evening’s radio adaptation on : 3YA of Tom Stoppard's I “Professional Foul” with j some misgiving. I had : seen the play on British television in 1977. The radio version was a treat, though. Despite being cobbed of the stark visaul imagery of whitewashed w’alls, naked light i b albs and an inscrutable middle-European policeman, the play managed to project a subtle,- sinister tension, using the medium of sound alone. Indeed, the quality of the script was lovingly, almost gloatinglyrevealed. Some of the scene-set-tings that had been left to the TV camera were simply omitted here, and little concession was made to establish time or place, so you had to work hard at I the beginning of many changes of scene to establish what was going on. Which was exactly the experience that Professor Anderson — masterfully played again by Peter

Ba-kworth — was undergoing while he matched his professional verbage as a moral philosopher with his personal feelings as a visitor in Czechoslovakia during a particularly ruthless repression.

Tension and uncertainty increased immeasurably, with hero and listener sharing the same need for orientation.

In the adaptation, some parts of the nightclub scene were omitted, but more of the content of the philosophy congress was given. Stoppard is far too clever a writer to allow himself a mere parody of complicated views. Naturally, the scholarly papers that were being read were supposed to be ridiculed, yet on radio you were made to listen to them without the distracting viewer’s eye, and suddenly you realised that this was no mere send-up; the speeches were actually interesting. So much so that when the elderly questioner finished his fluent, waggish and eloquent comment, to be met . with the simple “What was the question?”

by the speaker, we were all neatly and skilfully floored. Whatever did happen to the Catastrophe Theory anyway?

The undercurrent of true religion, in the form of a football match between Czechoslovakia and England was strong. In fact, the reason for the professor of philosophy’s attendance at the congress was the football match which, alas, he never did see.

Stoppard’s three versions of the game, given over the telephone by sports reporters were splendid in their satire; and the tabloid journalist, flogging the Blank Czech pun to an excruciating death, was particularly hilarious.

Man’s devotion to sport while the countries thus represented wreak all sorts of crimes against their citizens had a peculiar topicality about it, had it not? Was someone in Radio New Zealand trying to make a timely point? Should we look on New Zealand Radio Time with new eyes? The football match was a constant accompaniment

to grisly events, yet-the roar of the crowd was. as mindlessly, authentic in. “oppression” as Tt would be in "freedom.” No, Virginia, sport is not the opiate? of the people. Yes, I know that the underarm odour of the Australian bowling caused more damage to trans-Tas-man relations than any other single event in The last year, but that’s not the point. Is it? < - - Surely- that can’/- be what Stoppard meant. Why, it’s only a play after all.