Television

Bore for today

Clive Gammon', Writing about bores in a nonboring way is one of the most difficult of literary tasks, one which the authors of Play for Today often attempt, though it isn't always certain whether or not they are conscious of the Gorgon-like nature of their subjects. This was true of last week's effort, the name of which I have mercifully forgotten but which was concerned with a group of students at, somebody said, the Northern Polytechnic (if there is such a place which seems all too likely). I almost didn't see it because when I switched on to BBC I there shimmered into view what looked like a Welsh version of Davy Crockett. Like, as I an

never tired of saying, more than 80 per cent of my compatriots, I couldn't understand a word of it but from the evidence of perhaps sixty seconds baffled viewing before I snarlingly changed channels I can report that the actors wore clean costumes, stood up straight and remembered their lines. If you think this is faint praise then you don't know BBC Cymru.

Anyway, that left me with The Two Ronnies (BBC 2) and that was a sad occasion too for I find Ronnie Corbett, certainly, very funny indeed as a rule and this week, the script was so impoverished that I blushed for him.

"Whoever stuck the knife in his back was a much-travelled man."

"How do you know?"

"It was a British Railways knife," It is on occasions like this that I am greatly relieved we have no American guests in the house.

Which brings me back, by some means or other, to Play for Today which I saw after all because Cardiff were screening it late. These students were very boring indeed even though (and the point was rammed home over and again) these were secohd-class students. This was because they were inarticulate. Significantly, the only bright one was mildly spastic.

There may be such students but they are utterly unlike the ones I have met in recent years who strike me as more, not less, articulate than my contemporaries. But let that pass since I wasn't seeking documentary verisimilitude but an entertaining and possibly stimulating Sunday evening play which made valid points, if you like, about boring students. The trouble was that the author badly failed in that literary task I spoke of earlier: his play was so boring that it clearly has a place, re-run over and over again, in the treatment of chronic euphoria.

I am off for a few weeks' inter ference with the lives of God's finny creatures in Lapland and meantime my place will be taken by David Rees, at one time literary editor of this paper. Before I take my leave, however, I must warmly recommend to you the funniest show currently on the box.

It is called Sam and it goes out on Tuesday evenings on ITV.

Among the lines I roared over last week were: "I'll see thee again. 'appen "; "She'll 'ave to get on wi' life, like others 'ave 'ad to."; "'e were proud of 'is work in the days when they let 'im." Triumphantly the makers of Sam have brought together all

the most boring Yorkshire clichés

against a cliché Depression background spoken in what I can't be alone in considering the most boringly self-satisfied and plonking accent in the world. As you can guess, the first couple of episodes have received just the

sort of mindless praise you'd expect from the booby left. But never mind that, it's so bad that it will have you rolling from your chair, I promise you.

Well. I'll see thee again soon, then. 'Appen.