Uncovered
Richard Ingrams
The exposure of Sir Anthony Blunt last week highlighted the lack of any Current Affairs machinery, especially on the BBC, to deal with the story. With Panorama (BBC-1) devoted to Iran and Weekend World (ITV) to the economy no programme, as far as I could see, on either channel gave any decent coverage to the affair — though there were diverting performances on the news bulletins from Mr Michael Rubinstein, Sir Anthony's lawyer, and Mr Brian Sewell, his young friend from Sotheby's, both of whom were obviously enjoying like anything their little hour of glory.
I am not saying that the story is of tremendous importance compared to, for example, the Iranian situation. It is just that when something like this crops up, the telly ought to be able to give us some good coverage. It was not as if they were caught unawares. From The Book Programme (BBC-2) of three weeks ago on which Andrew Boyle appeared it was fairly obvious that Blunt would soon be unmasked.
All the same I was thankful for the return of Weekend World and Brian Walden even if he overlooked what was the story of the week. Instead, with the help of the usual dons with beards, Walden devoted an hour to surveying the collapse of the government's economic policy. The conclusion was that so far from relying on a free-for-all to sort everything out, Thatcher's monetary policies require an all-round restriction of wage increases down to about the nine per cent level. Weekend World research among the workers by hand and by brain revealed that such a target is not likely to be hit. Well, as ITV and Walden had just been off the air for several weeks prior to their affluent technicians finally agreeing to a magnificent 21 per cent rise, this was not altogether news. More interesting to me was Walden's oft-repeated view that Mrs Thatcher had failed in her 'propaganda campaign' to convince us all to moderate our wage demands. As a part-time TV critic 1 have not been especially aware of any propaganda campaign being waged by the government. A recent BBC series on British propaganda during and after the war reminded us that during the Labour government of 1945-50 Clement Attlee went on Pathe News in the cinemas nearly every week to deliver a little pep talk to the nation. Meanwhile, Mrs Thatcher's main interest in the BBC seems to be in bombarding it with rather hysterical and ill-informed complaints about Northern Ireland. If she is seriously interested in conducting a propaganda campaign you would think she would take a more constructive approach. Timothy West looks like winning my TV Actor of the Year award following his recent portrayal of Churchill, not to mention an outstanding performance as Porfiry in Crime and Punishment. On Sunday he appeared on the BBC as the late Sir Thomas Beecham. There seems to be a bit of a craze nowadays to portray historical characters on stage and on telly. Not all these biographical experiments are to be commended. I shall not, for example, be going within a mile of the National Theatre where Sir Peter Hall and the over-rated playwright Peter Shaffer have taken it into their woolly heads to portray Mozart as a giggling sexcrazed buffoon. To put Sir Thomas Beecham on the stage, as Ned Sherrin and Caryl Brahms have done, demands less imagination. Even so, on the basis of the excerpts we saw on Sunday, I doubt whether I would*be prevented from fidgeting in the theatre. Beecham is a man about whom anecdotes are told. He was a good but not a great conductor — a fact that he himself recognised: 'I will not be called the greatest musician ever; on the other hand I am a damned sight better than any foreigner.' Nothing however suggests that his peppery wisecracks erupted from a very profound, or even agreeable character. Even so they are of a high quality. I liked his description of Wagner: 'Damn German stuff! Two hours of this and they're still singing the same tune.' Timothy West got under Beecham's skin with his usual skill and even managed to look like a convincing conductor.
Beecham's view of television was fairly sound. About 20 years ago he said, 'Three quarters of television is for half-wits. The boxing is alright.' There isn't much boxing on the television these days. I suppose people find it too violent. I like to think that Sir Thomas would enjoy the Muppets whose new series is every bit as good as the last. I am also happy to note a distinct improvement in Basil Brush (BBC-1) which had been going through a very bad patch.
Previous page
