The Shadow of the Swastika (1940) - Australian reviews
| A. L. Lloyd spent six years in Australia between 1924 and 1930, working as a station hand in NSW.
When he returned to England he took with him an interest in the songs he learned from shearers and other bush workers.
His career as a folklorist is well known but he also became an early documentary radio program maker and broadcaster with the BBC.
One of his most famous programs "The Shadow of the Swastika" was broadcast as the Second World War began. Through the BBC overseas service the program was broadcast in Australia and other countries across the world.
Maryborough Chronicle, Thursday 9 November 1939 p. 8. The book that was based on the radio program was published in 1940 and was on sale in Australia. In a sense it was Lloyd's first return to Australia, although his earlier time in the bush was unknown to the book's reviewers.
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The Sydney Morning Herald Saturday 21 September 1940
HITLER ON THE AIR. "The Shadow of the Swastika," by A. L. Lloyd and Igor Vinogradoff. John Lane, the Bodley Head.
It was estimated by the B.B.C. that
12,000,000 people listened to this radio
drama of the story of the German
National Socialist Party when it was produced in six parts during November and
December of last year and January of
this. Perhaps not all of this interest is
due to the merit of the script and the
production, but the two authors seem to
have developed the radio chronicle-play, based on considerable research, to a
high pitch, and a numerous cast, which
included a Goring to play Hitler, must
have given it all the scope it needed. A
narrator holds the scenes together, utters
comment and even direct warning to the
principal character. The first scene is
in August, 1914, with Germany going to
war; the last shows the same situation In
September, 1939. In between move and
speak all the important personages of
that time-except Chamberlain. Indeed,
the only English character is Sir Nevile
Henderson. Excitement is maintained at
such a pitch that the main Incidents in
the rise of the Nazis do not emerge in
the reading quite so clearly as they
might, but altogether the play forms an
effective compression of fateful years of
history and gives a strong picture of
German life and strife. The West Australian Saturday 21 September 1940 HITLER'S RISE. "The Shadow of the Swastika" by A. L. Lloyd and Igor Vinogradof, London: John Lane, 5/-. From the publisher. "THE Shadow of the Swastika" is the script of the British Broadcasting Corporation's most memorable venture in radio drama. An introduction by the authors recites the circumstances under which the work was undertaken and the measures that were adopted by them in association with the B.B.C. to ensure that their work would faithfully portray the German scene from the end of the world war of 1914-18 to the Polish invasion. This play which reads like a Greek tragedy was presented to British listeners in eight programmes by a cast of 60 characters. Some doubt was entertained at the outset as to the acceptability of this dramatisation of recent German his tory but according to the B.B.C. interest in it never once flagged but actually became keener as the drama in which Adolf Hitler is the central figure is unfolded. The Fuehrer is never for long off the stage where he exhibits himself and is exhibited by his satellites as the Mephistopheles of the play. This historical drama is the story of the Nazi movement and of the life of the man who has so diabolically in spired it with his world-wrecking philosophy. The essentially different condi- tions governing the legitimate stage and that of the radio, suggest that the B.B.C. script of "The Shadow of the Swastika" would need to undergo substantial revision before it could be successfully adapted for presentation by any other medium. Here, however, is material enough for a dozen stage dramas, not the least sensational of which would be one revolving round the Reichstag fire and the famous trial. The Mail (Adelaide) Saturday 28 September 1940 Impressive Radio Drama "Shadow of the Swastika," by A. L. Lloyd and Igor Vinogradoff (John Lane, The Bodley Head, London). Our copy from the publishers. THIS is the book of the play which was broadcast in eight parts and an epilogue by the B.B.C. in the first six months of the war. |
The script is condensed to six parts
in the book. With the greatest respect to L. Du
Garde Peach, and other masters of
the craft of writing for radio,
it may well be contended that this is
the best radio drama--using
"drama"
in its correct, and not its
loose sense--yet achieved.
Admittedly there was strong material available, for the play tells
of the rise to power of Hitler and
his party. However much we detest Nazidom and all that it means,
there is no doubt that the course of
the party has been rich in dramatic
incident--much of it horrible, but
terribly vivid and ironic.
By voice, music, and sound effects
this play must stand or fail in
their interesting preface the authors
go to considerable pains to emphasise that without the tempo and
variation of the actors' voices, the
sound effects, and the musical score,
the success of the play cannot be
judged.
This is obvious, but little or no
imagination is needed to realise
how successful "Shadow of the
Swastika" must have been.
The authors strove for strict accuracy of fact, and, as far as one
can know, achieved it But they
showed extraordinary skill in choosing incidents which were most im-
pressive dramatically and which
also carried on the story.
The dialogue of the story is terse,
simple, and, whenever possible, usually colloquial. To get the necessary contrasts. Hitler, Goering, and
Goebbels are given typical ranting
speeches--or, at least. bits of
speeches. Time was limited.
Eight photo-montages by G. R.
Morris illustrate the book.
The Examiner (Launceston) Monday 30 September 1940 BOOK REVIEWS "Shadow of the Swastika," by A. L. Lloyd and Igor Vinogradoff, official B.B.C. version (the Bodley Head). This publication is volume form of the original B.B.C. script specially edited and with an introduction by the authors of the celebrated "The Shadow of the Swastika," is an outstanding historic event. During the difficult first six months of the war, one programme series alone seized the opportunity offered and riveted the attention of the population of Great Britain as never before--the astounding and yet authentic story of the German Nazi party and its leader, Adolf Hitler, re enacted in thrilling dramatic form. Here, then, is the B.B.C.'s greatest and most historic broadcast triumph in permanent form. living pages of his tory which posterity will assuredly wish to assess. The Listener Research Department of the B.B.C. has calculat- ed that more than one in three of our adult population--some 12,000,000 people--listened to the series, the greatest audience ever secured by any one feature-series. In their special introduction the authors reveal how the programme actually came into being: how they worked at great speed, consulting masses of original documents, both published and unpublished, taking the greatest possible care to ensure com plete accuracy--a lonely outpost in the almost wholly evacuated Broadcast ing House. And with proper pride they suggest that what was essentially to be a large-scale propaganda programme became pure drama: the story of the man and forces which chose to plunge Europe into war. The Mercury (Hobart) Saturday 19 October 1940
Books Of The Week THERE is a genuine dramatic treat in store for anyone who reads "Shadow of the Swastika." by A. L. Lloyd and Igor Vinogradoff (John Lane, the Bodley Head, London; 6/-). It is not a novel, nor is it Action, but a dramatised version of the rise of Adolf Hitler. Presented as a radio play, this work was first launched by the British Broadcasting Corporation as a series of dramatic incidents. The script has been carefully edited and put into a form which makes it splendid reading. lt is interpretative of the era which has produced dictators; it is explanatory of much that needed explaining in the evolution of |
Hitler from obscurity to his present
position; it is something of a warning
to those who look round and ask: "Can we not
find one man to lead us and get rid of these
parliaments?"; it is the lesson of the ages
to men and women who believe that a single
individual can ever rule millions justly or
who think that in the reek of supreme power
he will not become either inhuman or sub-human.
The authors have written an introduction
to the book giving a sketch of the manner
in which they worked to broadcast the series.
The cast contains the names of all the most
notorious leaders in Naziland-Goering,
Goebbels, Ribbentrop, Hindenburg, von
Papen, Rohm--also many others outside the
party, and again such names as Sir Neville
Henderson, Dollfuss, Schuschnigg, and
others. Among the incidents are the Reichstag fire, and the various events that led up
to and made war certain. A narrator covers
such introductory passages as are required, to
make plain what follows. This is essential
in many radio plays, and, indeed, the old
prologue seems certain to come into his own
if only because on the air it is impossible
to convey accurately varying lapses of time,
and often impossible to present a scene
without some kind of explanatory preface to it.
All this the authors have done with fine
skill, and the result is a book that for intense dramatic power is one of the strongest I have read. But it is much more than
that. It is a record of one of the most as-
tonishing events in history which gave into
the hands of an ignorant, illiterate man the
might of a great nation to distort it, abuse
it, and wreck it as he willed. This is a book
that makes history live.
The Argus Saturday 2 November 1940 Shadow of the Swastika SHADOW OF THE SWASTIKA, by A. L. LLOYD and IGOR VINOGRADOFF (London: John Lane, the Bodley Head); 6/- net.
The history of the Nazi party and of
its leader, Adolf Hitler, has been told
many times-perhaps too many times
but never before to my knowledge has it
been told fully in the crisp dialogue
and allied "effects" of a radio play.
It has been done now, and done remarkably well, by two writers of the B.B.C.
in "Shadow of the Swastika," claimed to
be "the first radio-dramatisation of contemporary history ever broadcast in Great
Britain." The authors were A. L. Lloyd
and Igor Vlnogradoff. The play was heard
by 12,000,000 listeners, and the script
is now published in book form. Australians have not had the opportunity of hearing the play broadcast--it would have
done much to counterbalance the spate of
trashy radio plays that Australian listeners
can always find at a flick of the dial--but
the reading of the play can be recommended as the next best thing.
All the dramatic effects of the radio
theatre are employed--sequences of events
dramatised by brief commentary, special
sound and "atmospheric effects," snatches
of symbolic, almost surrealistic dialogue
but behind all these lies a painstaking
and accurate task of compiling for the first
time a true, readable, and "popular" history of Hitler and the Nazis. It begins in
1914, marches on to 1918, and the mutiny
at Kiel, the return of the German Army,
disillusionment, poverty, hunger, unemployment, breeding ground for factions
and ideologies, the birth of a new phenomenon named Adolf Hitler, who was to
throw his threatening shadow across all
the world. ... It ends with a conversation between Hitler and Sir Nevile
Henderson. |