Television
Compelling
Alexander Chancellor
Idon't know what it is about Roy .Plomley. Although he is perfectly fright- ful in every possible way, everything he does is utterly addictive. When you come to think about it, Desert Island Discs was a pretty silly and vulgar idea for a radio programme. Yet it has held the nation in thrall for decades. Ever since I was young I have dreamed of appearing on it, and I am sure it is just out of bitterness at the 'It's about the sufferings of chaps who go down to the sea in ships' biscuits.' frustration of my one and only serious ambition that I have turned so nasty about Mr Plomley in recent years. He ought to be flattered.
I hate to admit it, but I am afraid he has done it again with his television series Favourite Things (BBC2, Sundays). It does not, of course, command the prestige of Desert Island Discs. Nor is it yet such stuff as dreams are made on. But I am already beginning to find it dangerously comPel" ling. I won't dwell here on the awfulness of Mr Plomley, for its contemplation merelY exacerbates my feelings of bitterness and envy. I will dwell instead on the subject of last Sunday's programme, which was Lady Antonia Fraser, or Pinter. It is tempting tO be beastly about Lady Antonia, as it Is about anybody who seems to have everY- thing their own way. But what can one say? The worst I can manage is to suggest that there is no flicker of false modesty about her. She has no doubts about her stature as an historian or as a writer or, indeed, as anything else — or, at least, if she does have doubts, she did not show them on this programme. On the contrary. She gra- ciously accepted without challenge all the compliments that the fawning Mr PlornleY chose to pay her, even occasionally im- proving on them. When he suggested, for example, that she must be a very fast reader, she replied: 'I'm the Zola Budd of reading.' But why should one object to such self-confidence? It is one of the keYs to happiness. It would be fairer to Poult out that Lady Antonia has used her looks and her brains and her energy to create for herself a life of enviable comfort a!a:1 contentment. Her 'favourite things' 10" dude her doll's house, the game of rughY, Bodian Castle in Sussex, her family scrap books (two for each of her six children.), the 17th century ('my century'), her his torical sitting-room' (as she calls her study), English seaside hotels, oysters. at Wheeler's, her cat 'Roily', Placid° Domingo (about whom she is 'passion- ate), the Royal Opera House CI want to have a little home in a box'), her garden (a, 'permissive' garden), and fortune tellers. I can quite see why she likes fortune tellers when they are like the Indian fortune teller 'Professor Mirza' whom we saw telling her that she was going to live for a very long time, that she would experience only suc- cess — no failures — and that in the near future she would experience something 'very exciting'. She was also told that she had 'a husband who loves you very deePlY' and you will be together for the rest of your living days'. The husband was really the only omission on the programme. Where was Harold Pinter? If he had been around, he might at least have stopped the terrible flirtation between Lady Antonia and Mr Plomley at Bodian Castle. Was the castle ever taken?' he asked. `How aggress.ive you are!' chirped Lady Antonia, explaina that she thought of castles in terms of defence rather than attack. 'That's a natu- ral sexual difference, isn't it?' cooed Mr Plomley.
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