Rachel Redford

The Spoken Word: Short Stories, Volume II – review

issue 04 May 2013

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:...

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