Arnold Hill Radio Plays

Arnold Hill was a writer and playwright in addition to earning a living as a businessman. He wrote short stories, several of which appeared in anthologies. He had several stage plays produced, including one in London in 1953 and another at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1965.

He also wrote numerous radio plays and had approximately 50 broadcasts of his own plays and radio adaptations of other writers' work on the BBC and overseas in the 1950s and 1960s.

So far we have no plays by Arnold Hill. If anyone has a recording and would like to share it, please get in touch.


NOTES / REVIEWS ON SOME OF THE PLAYS


A MARRIAGE OF INCONVENIENCE....1969
Crawfordsburn businessman Arnold Hill, who took up writing as a relaxation, has had another success with his play "A Marriage of Inconvenience". It is to be broadcast on Radio 2 on Wed. 2 April.

English David and Irish Sarah do not make an ideal couple, but a threatened visit from Sarah's parents forces them to continue in the role of love-birds. As David, Martin Jarvis is more familiar to television viewers as Iren's son John in "The Forsyte Saga". Heather Gibson plays Sarah. The cast is completed by Harold Goldblatt, Irene Bingham and Larry McCoubrey.

Mr. Hill has just finished writing a novel. (........taken from local newspaper article, Apr. 1969)

Running time: 60 minutes. (Diversity website listing: Midweek Theatre, A Marriage of Inconvenience (45) Arnold Hill R2 2.4.1969/2015 Martin Jarvis/Heather Gibson )


THE LIFE OF THE PARTY....1962(?)
Notes from RT: When Mercy Caldwell receives a cheque for her first published story she proposes to use the money in settling overdue accounts, but her brother and sister have more ambitious ideas. They long to recall the affluent years with a dinner party for old friends. Is the party a success? Only in a manner of speaking.....

Cast:
Caroline Medway.....Gwendolyn Stewart
Mercy Caldwell.....Irene Bingham
Hector Caldwell.....James Boyce
Tubby Haslam.....Harold Goldblatt
Miss Dowdy.....Doreen Hepburn
Jane Semple.....Annette Payan
Harold Semple.....Hugh Montgomery
Producer.....Ronald Mason

Remarks by Ronald Mason, producer:

The author of tonight's play, "The Life of the Party", is a company director living in Crawfordsburn with his wife and eighteen-year-old son. Arnold Hill's first play was broadcast from Northern ireland fifteen years ago. Since then he has had many of his plays and adaptations broadcast at home and overseas.

Despite a very considerable output Mr. Hill regards writing only as an absorbing hobby. 'The financial rewards of writing' he claims 'are so inadequate that without a private income the professional wroter's years would be lean years indeed.'

Mr. Hill has tried his hand at many kinds of writing, including the novel and the stage play, but he finds the scope that radio gives most satisfying, 'not only for imaginative writing but for imaginative listening'. He has a feeling that many people are turning again from viewing to listening, or at least using the media of television and radio more selectively.

I asked Arnold Hill about his attitude to the 'new wave' of playwrights like Pinter and Wesker. He found in their work a relief from the stereotyped plot but feared that the interest gained there could be sacrificed by a too slavish imitation of natural speech, which became, as he put it, 'thin, repetitive and boring'.

Tonight's play, which I am producing, is about an aspirant writer who after twenty years of failure has had her first short story published.

Ronald Mason



Clip from local newspaper.....Arnold Hill's latest play "The Life of the Party" is to be produced on Thursday January 24. After twenty years, an aspiring writer has had her first short story published. What to do with the publisher's cheque and the background of the lean years that led up to this meagre success form the subject matter of the work.

The part of the writer is played by Irene Bingham, and others taking part include James Boyce, Harold Goldblatt and Doreen Hepburn.



Local newspaper, review...... ... A bitter-sweet mixture was "The Life of the Party", Arnold Hill's smoothly articulated play on the Northern ireland Home Service last night.

Hill gave his characters some stylish witticisms, and a timeless, rootless setting; the debt-ridden, shabby world of complacent gentility.

There was heartbreak for a tremulous spinster (played with fine judgement by Irene Bingham) when, after ten years, she met again the hearty, but weak, man (Harold Goldblatt) whom she had long loved. But then the author seemed to relent and tacked on a sentimental ending.

He also offered some nicely observed comedy in a scene where a tipsy seamstress (Doreen Hepburn) did not realise that she had outstayed her welcome at a dinner party.

Gwendolen Stewart was the spinster's sonorously acid sister and James Boyce herbookish brother. Ronald Mason contrived a near production for this civilised entertainment.

compiled by Nigel Deacon, Aug 2010, from information supplied by the writer's son, Alan Hill, living in Canada.

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