Phoney Problems MY impression of the BBC Television Service; gleaned
during lny period as guest critic nbc,7, ends this week, is that, generally speakink " is go-ahead, all-embracing and interesting' Only in one programme have I discovered Os' black sheep which, so they say, inhabits evel flock, and that is in the programme called Is This Your Problem? To put it mildly, there is something angs,,Iji this programme I dislike. Last year
Vaguely disquieted by it when I watched
an amateur. Last week, when I watched in: first performance in the new series, there Yisi nothing vague about my feelings. My critics, hackles were up and my Biro spouting from first to last. You see (if I may usc, phrase employed ad nauseam in this Pr';:, gratnme), I think it's phoney. And not 0.„11,,'t phoney, but 'ham' and unhealthy as well. 01' let us take phoney first. This programme produces people, unroll from domestic, financial and even phYsic3it troubles and places them on our screensys then provides them with false names and d panel, consisting of a doctor, a clergyman 8",1 a university executive to advise them. I% week one of these incognito sufferers was t, woman married, if my memory serves me air to a naval officer with three sons and a sill wedding either coming up or just past. r'sf trouble was that she had taken £75 out of 1,4, joint savings account with her husband 0; some celebration or other for the boys, thli3O reducing that account's credit from 00,', £25. The question was, should she tell nc' husband? You sec (if I may use that phrase alfail3,2,' that's what I find phoney. Not so much the problem, which even the local vicar's could have solved' for hzr, but the incoginl; racket. How many naval officers are there three sons, u silver wedding coming up or j„t1,5,t past, a £100 savings account, and a rec`',4 celebration for the boys? And how manY them found their wives slipping out of tPof house last Thursday evening on the Plea to visiting Aunt Mabel at Broadstairs, on1Y d, finish up on the BBC Television Service, broa 6 casting, in every detail, a worry, which it Wad, her one ambition to keep from her husba,,n to between three and four million peoPle So much for the programme being phol Now for it being 'ham.' In this connection, , am not criticising the Panel. They are patenne), sincere and honest and offer advice firsb, gratis, but, I imagine, not for nothing), n:_hleni as I have already said, the local doctor, sc9°-oi master and vicar could hand out to an; these people in their sleep. Nor am I unclub'e criticising the programme midwife or, since won is a man, midhusband. You see, / v/f"rt mention his name because I don't want to Or his feelings. So I shall call him Mr. gind,cis garten, and merely record that 1 think. 11 problem is to ask himself whether he couldn't be better employed.
But I am criticising the lady who introduces each case and, to avoid hurting her feelings, I shall call her Miss Reynolds. You see, she drives me nuts. Moreover, she used to be an actress and her problem is to try and convince us that she isn't acting now. You see, if she is acting, she's overacting to such a degree that she makes one want to smash one's set in with a hatchet. And if she isn't, then her problem is that she's lost all sense of proportion. I know she's trying to help, but so, if you remember, was the poster of the woman called 'Keep Death Off The Road,' and she's.off the road now and not, unfortunately, death.
Finally, unhealthy. Why do I say that? Because, you see, I don't like the motive that brings these people on to a television screen to discuss their private affairs. If they were public affairs, like the problem of the young school- master who appeared on this programme last year, I could excuse it. But not private, please.
I'm sorry to be so rude but, you see, I'm only trying to help, too. And as for Miss Rey- nolds and Mr. Kindergarten and the Panel, I would say that their problem is to ask them- selves why these people want to appear in public. And the answer should be fairly simple —for the doctor, anyway.
WILLIAM DOUGLAS HOME
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