Tuesday, September 18, 2012

The House on Highbury Hill


The House on Highbury Hill was a BBC radio play from yesteryear; the Audio Factory has re-produced it.  Now, I haven’t heard the original, but I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark and suggest not much has changed between the original and this new “staging.”  Please feel free to correct me.  I’m not sure what contribution the new version makes.  It’s a mildly interesting play about the way a moral, would-be priest is corrupted by a manipulative woman (it’s always a woman).  It seems like a particularly British kind of play; the man is unbearably naïve.  It reminded me in tone of The Holly and the Ivy which I heard at Christmastime last year; that’s supposed to be a classic stage play.  This, too, felt very staged.  It had a narrator who was more like a cue reader.

Certainly in technical terms, The House on Highbury Hill is faultless.  It’s well-produced, the acting is very good, and it sounds very professional.  I’d definitely listen to anything else the Audio Factory produced, but this was not my cup of tea.

No comments:

Post a Comment