Summer's Sport
As June swells into something a little more like remembered summers, sport begins to Wrench the little screen wide open. Ascot drummed its way into my office (and pocket) last week with as fine an outside coverage, surely, as the BBC has yet put pn. The races Were shown clearly from off to muttered curse; the commentaries (by that excellent team of Mr. Graham and Mr. O'Sullevan) were crisp and helpful; even the business of clothes was stitched neatly into the presentation. On Thurs- day then, the opening of as harrowing a Test as we're likely to grumble to our children about. Burke and Burge, stolid and sticky; a dull beginning; but exploding on Friday and Saturday into the fierce maturity of Miller and the still juvenile truculence of Trueman. Saturday's uninterrupted couple of hours par- ticularly (from 4.30 to 6.30) were as satisfying and spicy as a steak au poivre. The whole Paraphernalia of breaks for Children's Hour remains one of the most vexatious things currently affecting television. But, one sup- Poses, the Corporation does the best it can; and not everyone, one goes on supposing with a mild surmise, is fascinated by cricket. And anyway, no one who is could be better served than by Messrs. Swanton, Johnson and West and that likeable newcomer Mr. Fingleton. Their ball-by-ball commentaries and analyses have been better than ever this year. So to Wimbledon and the absorbing spectacle of rival gentlemen talking into rival microphones While rival cameras range and swoop for the even whiter than whitest of shots. It's early to say yet whether the Corporation or the Authority has anything the other hasn't got; an informal poll conducted casually by blind- folded investigators on Tuesday morning revealed one salient trend: in families with 1.3 or more children ITA was preferred because of the commercials; there was indeed, from two separate informants, some grumbling that these People playing tennis were getting in the way of the jingles. This serves to underline a fact Which I have been quietly worrying about for some weeks. Children are finding the com- mercials so much more stimulating than Yakity 1'ak (which goes from worse to wherever), Mr. bouglas Fairbanks and (even) The Creaking Door, that when the next generation grows UP there'll just be programme spots in between the other thing. The best moments of the sporting week have been those when Miller has been bowling. The licked finger, the tossed-back hair, the lazy, contemptuously unstudied turn, the head- down lope to the wicket and that astonishing thirty-six-year-old arm, up and over—this was a master's performance that television held Complete and communicated perfectly.
JOHN METCALF
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