Recruiting Poster
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Drama 62 presented Alfred Marks in
Recruiting Poster
by Edmund Ward with Ray Barrett,
Ilona Ference, Hilda Fenemore, Carl Bernard, and Tenniel
Evans.
In the Army, George Poster dreamt of home. At home he dreams of the Army. His conflict is the platform for this comedy but highlights the problems of the institutionalised man.
Review: Attempts Too Much at Once
The Times, 13/08/1962
Mr. Edmund Ward's play Recruiting Poster, on Associated Television's Drama 62 last night, tried to do so many things at once tha it ended up making no sort of sense at all.
It was, supposedly, a comedy which "highlighted the problem of the.institationalized man". Unfortunately, the comedy was mainly in the characterization, paricularly of the central charaoter, George, a complete Soldier by training and temperam ent, who as soon as he comes out of the Army after 18 years sets out to ,ake a home life as much like it as possible - duty rosters, a bugle to summon his mother-in-law from next door, a stove in the bedroom to dry socks.
He is, in short, a figure of farce, believable only to the limited extent that we believe in farcical stereotypes, but then Mr. Ward gs on to involve him in a number of serious situations, without realizing that we can hardly be expected to accept general conclusions when even the particular instance is never made credible
There was one good scene, in which George visits the labour exchange and rejects every job offered, one by one. But otheiwise the erratic vacillations between farce, realistic comedy-drama, and straight proaohing - the welfare officer's little piece about George as a perfect example of environmental conditioning, the wife's final, quite out-of-character analysts of their situation - tore the play to pieces. Mr. Alfred Marks was, as ever, sympathetic as the hero, but the efforts of the rest were mostly devoted to trying to make bricks without Straw.