3 Franks Review;  Whats Going On,

National Radio 19/8/05.

Lynn Freeman talks to reviewer Catherine Ransom.

The whole thing was really funny, really fun and terrific to watch, very entertaining. They Gave Her A rise was particularly funny a little story about an explosion and a girl who was thought to be dead and she wasn’t dead and the funniest part about was a chorus of neighbours who kept rushing in and being nosy and gossiping, all in song of course.

What was the orchestration with it?

There were three cellos, 3 woodwind and 3 violins

What sort of duration was it?

The whole thing went from about 8 to a quarter past nine.

So all of these were about 20 odd minutes?

Yea and there was an interval after the first two.

So what about Two Worlds?

Two Worlds was also a comedy, it was particularly good because the two leads were the two little boys played by the two women but they were very funny, the characterisations were very funny one of them was older and wouldn’t let the other do anything and they carried the whole thing and it was quite down home humorous it was a thing between rabid Protestantism and Catholicism and the finding of a rosary and the grandfathers disapproval and the wonderful priest who was a lot nicer than the boys expected him to be that was quite warm and uhh they had a filmed backdrop because they took a ride on a carriage because the horse was a human and there was this filmed background of old New Zealand houses going by which was quite entertaining.

Now A Great Day, they went into a different gear for this one didn’t they?

Yes they did it was very dark, its quite a dark story its about a murder and they staged it as a piece of water it was a big cloth and the boat that was on wheels that floated across and they had four people on stage as ..I dunno seaweed people…in masks and drooping costumes and they were quite spooky and scary. You couldn’t see their faces they were waves and yea it was a lot darker and it had a little bit more problem with the technique of it. At some stages in the middle of it the instruments tended to over-ride the singing, where in the other ones you could hear everything they were singing and you got the story and you didn’t need to be a Frank Sargeson fan to know what was going on in the middle of this one you lost some of the dialogue because the instruments in the front were quite a lot louder than the voices, or the voices were not quite loud enough, one or the other.

Katherine, accessible opera yes or no?

Very assessable, really really entertaining, a really good genre I really enjoyed it.