Wednesday 7 March 1928 2LO London 9.35-11.0

pr Cecil Lewis

trans and adapted by Cecil Lewis

Kettling - Herbert Lugg
Rampa - Wilfred Walter
Porto - Harold Scott
Lala - Jessie Tandy
Dr. Barbazin - Frank Petley
Norma - Hardy Cherry
Giddy - Clair Harris
Dr Peers - George Howe

The idea of an affinity, or even a fusion of identity, between mankind and the brute creation is old enough; literature is full of it, from the Frog-Princesses of fairy tales to the modern fantasies of ‘A Man at the Zoo’ and ‘Lady into Fox’. In ‘Rampa’ the idea is differently and more satirically, worked out.

It is the story of a man who lives amongst the animals until he learns their language and their ways, and comes to like them better than the insincere, sophisticated human beings to whose midst he is restored. As Capek’s ‘Insect Play’ satirized the weakness of humanity by showing them reproduced in the insect world, so ‘Rampa’ shows human frailty and suplicity thrown into relief against the simplicity of the animal world.

From the cold austerity of the Arctic wastes to the tinsel and glitter of the travelling show; thence to the crazy efficiency of the private asylum, and so back to the quayside from which ships leave for the frozen North - civilisation emerges not too well from the contrast, as seen through the eyes of Rampa, the ‘beast-man’.

There is plenty to rouse the imagination in this strange play by Max Moyr, the circus-rider in Cairo, the tramp, astrologer, doctor and Alpine guide, who is one of the most original writers in Europe today.