Television
Bye, Brother
Jeffrey Bernard
Worldwide. Kojak and Co. . . . (BBC2) confirmed my worst and long-held suspicions about Americans. It's not just that they worship the 'almighty' dollar, it's the fact that they have the most disgusting fear of failure. Watching and listening to American television tycoons talking about getting good audience ratings and giving the public what they want I felt a glow of patriotic pride as my mind mixed to a montage sequence of English television that included everything from The Evacuees to Crossroads. What I'd conveniently left though, on the cutting-room floor of my mind, was the new series The Fosters (London Weekend). I've seen two of them now and they are unbelievable. The series is billed as being the adventures of the coloured Foster family coping with the pressures of everyday life in London and the message is plain. These lovable, loose-limbed, fun-loving, rhythmconscious, childlike, sun-baked sons of slaves have exactly the same loves, hopes, dreams and fears as you or I and the only difference is that they are black. Of course, they have a tendency to conduct buses whereas most of us conduct orchestras, but basically—and I borrow the word basically from James Burke—there's no difference. If Jamaican television ever decide to make a series about white people in the West Indies, not only will it serve us right, but they'll have to dig up everyone who ever worked at Ealing Studios in the old days. Norman Beaton comes out of the tatty business head and shoulders above everyone else. As I say, it's unbelievable and 1 began to wonder what it was about that Friday that was Good. The Fosters was followed by Police Woman in the shape of Angie Dickinson who had given a fairly incoherent interview in the 'Worldwide' programme the night before. She'd said it was thanks to Women's Lib mainly that they'd decided to make Police Woman and yet there she is in it, not a woman with a career in the police force, but a bit of crumpet legally entitled to shoot people. I now live in fear of chatting someone up who will turn out to be attached to the CID at West End Central. After Miss Dickinson came Hadleigh (Yorkshire Television). Hadleigh himself apart, this series has become a vehicle for crumpet too. Recent episodes have been improved by Myra Frances. a very good actress who was very good in an excellent 'Second City First', Girl, but now that she's been dropped the series has become a sort of Playboy magazine with clothes on. I've said before that I think the series is moderately revolting and I still think so, but I now find myself watching it since it coincides with Patently Obvious (BBC 2) and usually dis mat News (BBC I). Last week's episode with Stephanie Beacham and Jenny Twigge made me feel that I was viewing it wearing a raincoat. Miss Twigge is easy on the eye, as Marlowe would have said, but if, as I'm beginning to suspect, ladies like Hadleighs, then I might have to hang myself with my TV aerial. On Easter Saturday BBC 2 gave us Is There a God? and if there is then it seems likely that Magnus Magnusson knows him. James Cameron gave the usual bit about having seen the atom bomb go off but no one mentioned the fact that he allows The Fosters to go out. What he has put a stop to, during the nice weather anyway, is The Brothers (BBC I). Mrs Hammond I suppose goes off on a cruise, sits at the captain's table and interferes with organised games, while son Ted goes back to Frankenstein's castle to have his batteries recharged. They really are awful and what's worse, I've now begun to believe in them. You can see them for yourself. Go into any town pub during the lunch hour and you'll see a Hammond brother eating a scotch egg. Walk into any fairly posh office and you'll see a Claire Miller crying into a filing cabinet while a Paul Merroney talks to his Dutch uncle on the private line. Given good sun-bathing weather this year, they could come back in the autumn and fill The Fosters' slot. Meanwhile, we're gbing to have The Onedin Line back with us which is not utterly unlike the Brothers trying to run a shipping line with Khatchaturian tagged on at either end. Perhaps that's what The Brothers needs. Sexy title music. 'Daphnis and Chloe' as the trucks rumble out of the depot. And talking of music, the ITV film on Sunday, South Pacific, must have been the worst cast film of all time. BBC 2's double bill of Adam's Rib and Pat and Mike was a lot better if you could take three hours and ten minutes of the excellent but palpably unfriendly Katharine Hepburn. She's like Dresden china with menace. Long High Summer (BBC 2) was a repeat but hopefully a preview of what cricket fans may be in for any day now. What an extraordinary fellow John Arlott is. If you closed your eyes to blot out the magnificent Clive Lloyd and just listened to Arlott you'd never think that cricket was a game. I don't take it that seriously myself, just having fits on the floor when England get beaten, but Arlott goes so far as to give me the impression that he thinks the game is almost too good for the likes of us, the humble viewer. Anyway, it's so good on television is cricket that I can't really see the point of ever going to Lord's again except for the fresh air. Another thing to consider before trekking off to tourist matches this year is the fact that The Fosters will be there in force. When the box gets hold of something good it really gives it a battering. I thought they'd keep John Curry in cold storage for a bit but I see they're replacing Ask The Family (BBC 1), the show that belies the brain drain, with John Curry's Fifty Golden Days. Lucinda Prior-Palmer, recently widowed you might think, is another getting a touch of over-exposure. But
just think of all the replays we're due to see and all the David Coleman screams we're due to hear and hear again when they kickoff at Montreal. I look forward very much to the Olympic boxing finals now that Harry Carpenter is getting close to peak fitness. Commenting on the ABA semi-finals the other night in Sportsnight (BBC I) he called our attention to a battered and reeling Welshman by saying, 'He looks hurt, the greenkeeper from Pembroke Golf Club.' It makes such a difference to boxing to know that a contestant is a greenkeeper, a sheet metal worker or a universal grinder. Next week, I want to talk to you very seriously about the James Burke problem.
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