Largely unheard since their original performances or BBC broadcasts between 1939 and 2011, these readings of 12 short stories by their authors are a treasure trove. *
E.M.Forster’s 1948 reading definitely conjures up a past era. His philosophical debate in ‘Mr Andrews’ concerning two souls in ‘interspace’ — of a righteous Englishman and a Turk who has slain his enemy ‘whilst fighting the infidel’ — is as academic as the 70-year-old author’s voice.
Similarly the irresistible opening to Osbert Sitwell’s ‘The Staggered Stay’ immediately takes us back to the Forties: ‘Miss Mumsford always put her aunt away upstairs, even in summer, before she came down to dinner…’ Sitwell’s delivery, crisp and aristocratic with his ‘lorst’ and ‘acrorss’, is delightfully animated — unlike Somerset Maugham’s. In the latter’s neat traveller’s tale, ‘The Wash Tub’, the first ever story read by its author, broadcast by the BBC in 1951, the speakers in the dialogue are difficult to distinguish because he fails to characterise even his American protagonist.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in