Radio review – TGA#137 – “Rip Van Winkle” (1948) **

Fred Allen stars in this re-imagining of the classic story – it’s a play within a play, so Allen plays Allen, who’s been assigned to every show on a radio network and has to serve time in Theatre Guild’s production of Rip Van Winkle. He does a traditional version then his own version where he starts in 1928, goes to a speakeasy and goes back in time. I enjoyed Allen’s raspy delivery but there were a few too many in-jokes for this to really work for me. This is quite irreverent for Theatre Guild – there are jokes about the high class reputation of the guild as well.