Television
Candied Tongue
By PETER FORSTER
How smooth most of television has become- Other examples range from Dimbleby on Panorama, referring to Eichmann's 'alleged atrocities,' to the way radio's early-morning Today swallowed whole a puff (hand-out style) by a Greek to the Greek Prime Minister on the eve of his visit. All so smoothly done that one is almost lulled into acceptance. In truth, TV is not an extension of the PR industry, and it is a good safeguard, whatever the quality of mind, for speakers in programmes to be as quirky and individual as possible—why, at present I posi- tively hanker for the old days of Muggeridge and Harding, and the chance of an eruption. I cannot think when I last saw a really good row on the screen. Do they think because they are virtuous, there shall be no more Brendan Behan?
That incidental point about the quality of mind must be made because so often the quality is appalling, especially in supposedly prestige pro- grammes. Take even About Religion, for which, to quote TV Times, 'Top TV playwright Rose- mary Anne Sisson has written four dramatised stories for Lent. The first of these deals in an original way with forgiveness.' It was called: `Sorry, Mate!', and I have seen nothing so awful since the same programme offered Lady Kennet on Lust. Here again was an actor-narrator, this time attempting a three-denominational ap- proach, and forced to utter such lines as: 'How do they manage, I wonder, when they fall over God's feet?' in the course of three little parables about a Catholic returning to confession, an Anglican vicar mending a woman's marriage over tea ('Just got her apron off in time!'), and a wee Free gentleman who goes to chapel to get out of the rain. After this came a discussion between three cheery priests, including a bland, bald Roman who administered extreme unctuousness. He spoke of 'that divine tactful way' Christ for- gave his Apostles, and described penance as 'a spiritual spanking.'
If I so often insist on the wordy side of tele- vision, it is because the value of the actual pic- tures is far more obvious. Who, to take an event in the news, can have thought that brawl in the UN worth such dramatic headlines, after seeing on the screen what a small-scale affair it was? By contrast, the scenes at the end of the last Test match in Australia, with the umpires sprinting through the hostile crowds, were infinitely more sensational: and if you are now muttering some- thing about a scale of values, then you are making my point that words are vital.
Last week was also enlivened by Theatre 70's Answered Prayers, which Fredric Raphael adapted from a Truman Capote short story about a seducer meeting nemesis in the form of an ex-mistress with a gun. Playing the man as a cross between Danny in Night Must Fall and Olivier's entertainer, Nigel Stock had great fun turning in a performance more camp than coffee, and one way and another the whole riveting occasion made me surprised yet again that various judges are at present bemoaning the low standard of TV drama, because to me the marvel is that. with so much produced, the standard should be so high.
I must also note that Get Ahead, the contest that used to be promoted by the BBC and the News Chronicle, has now been taken over by the Daily Mail. To make the irony complete, Mr. L. J. Cadbury should surely enter as a contestant.
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