What happens
Drama critic Archer Atkins and columnist Everett Clayton, longtime friends, become bitter rivals after Atkins savages Clayton's new play, The Whirlwind, in the globe. Clayton retaliates in his column, and the feud escalates when Atkins praises a book of poems that Clayton publicly claims he wrote himself. Atkins's standing at the paper collapses, and his humiliation grows as colleagues mock him. The Whistler, with Signal Oil Company sponsoring, presents this story as a series of steps, and the episode's first part follows the mounting hostility between the two men in New York. The original air date was February 3, 1947.
New York City, including the Brighton Theatre, the globe newspaper offices, and the Stratford Club
Characters: Archer Atkins, Everett Clayton, Murchison, Barbara Roth, Hanley Carr, Captain Fosse
Listen for: The escalating public feud between Atkins and Clayton over the play review and the disputed book of poems
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.