calling methods (which appears to execute ok) -- is not updating display

calling methods (which appears to execute ok) -- is not updating display

Form #1 (which opened Form #2)

public bool SetWebPane(string webURL)
        {
            try
            {
                webBrowserIncompleteDIPs.Navigate(webURL);
                documentPane_IncompleteDIPs.Activate();

                radLabel1.Text = "I should be working OK !";
                return true;
            }
            catch (COMException ex)
            {
                showError(ex);
                return false;
            }
        }

____________________

Form #2

private void radButton1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            FormCentral openForm = new FormCentral();
            openForm.SetWebPane("http://www.123.com");
        }  

problem is that Form #1 does not appear to be updating the screen with visual upates / or processing any of the methods commands such as navigate etc. -- yet in debug I can see the url value being passed across the 2 winforms ok and those lines of code being called ... but nothing on-screen (winform #1) is updating.

what could this? and how fixable?