Television
More woffle
Richard Ingrams
laving neglected the book world for launch months the BBC decided last week to abut a great splurge of programmes auout books. Almost every night there was NOW, programme and sometimes two. h °Iv, as far as I can see, it has all come to a oalt. I don't know whose idea this was — elissiblY Brian Wenham's, who can tell? D't it seemed a pretty pointless one — like wahtting on 29 2Y Fred Astaire films in a row, Chich is the sort of thing they like to do at aristmas. Nearly all these book program- likes were presented by non-book people, ,e Panorama's Richard Lindley who esided over an inconclusive little discus- ()n about war books with Leslie Thomas, Iheneral Sir John Hackett and the hero of fee Falklands, Max Hastings. Another mat Ned Sherrin doing a kind of book 'bat show with contributions from a , 41,..., 1 orderer Margaret Trudeau, and a
transvestite. The former bishop of Southwark also made a brief appearance. The only person I could see who had any literary credentials at all, Mr Peter Quen- nell, was allowed to say one sentence.
Some people including Lady Airey, widow of the assassinated Aircy Neave, have taken exception to Harry's Game (Yorkshire), a three part thriller shown on successive nights this week. This is not sur- prising as the story, written by former ITN reporter Gerald Seymour, involves the shooting of a Government Minister and the dispatch, on the Prime Minister's personal orders, of a special agent to Belfast to track down the killer. To begin with 1 felt some qualms about watching and enjoying this simple thriller — especially when the news this week is full of yet more atrocities in Northern Ireland. However the story is well told and quite exciting in contrast to the sluggish badly-written Smiley's People, and it does present the realities of Ulster in a reasonably honest way. And there is nothing sensational or tasteless about it. Whether the authorities will agree, I doubt. The decision by Mr Seymour's unseen, un- named Prime Minister to send an agent to revenge the killing of her Minister seemed very typical of Mrs Thatcher. A primitive Falklands-like response revealing the in- ability to think beyond a humdrum military solution or show some political vision for a change. This same bankruptcy over Northern Ireland came across in James Prior's inter- view with Brian Walden on Weekend World. For once Walden's attempt to ex- plain the situation following the latest elec- tion in Northern Ireland completely failed. His outlining of the various options facing Prior was as difficult to follow as Smiley's People and seemed to prove that the whole Assembly exercise was a waste of time. It was very depressing to see Prior just woffl- ing away like all the Ministers before him about power-sharing, devolution etc. There was more to be learned about Ireland from Harry's Game — though I should perhaps say that I am writing this, perforce, half way' through the story and so cannot say how it all ends up. Hopes that the second instalment of the Laurence Olivier marathon on LWT would mark an improvement on the first were not realised. There was a rather boring catalogue of stage performances — and some pointless snatches of interviews in- cluding one seemingly endless exchange in which Melvyn Bragg tried to get Olivier to talk about his acting techniques, without success. As for the stage performances it seemed silly to harp on these when there is so much Olivier on film to talk about. But even when the film performances were men- tioned Melvyn continued to miss the point. All he could say about the Hamlet was how exciting the duel scene was — when you could find duels every bit as good in lots of Hollywood films. No mention of the in- teresting aspects — the skilful cutting of the text or William Walton's background music. Otherwise there was not much to
write home about. Olivier's ill-fated mar- riage to Vivien Leigh was skated over. A few bits of ancient newsreel were thrown in, the old boy was seen wandering round his garden dressed up as a cowboy. And that was that. The whole thing was an oppor- tunity missed.
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