Television
Overdose
Richard In grams
John Braine made a name for himself about a hundred years ago as the author of Room at the Top, a story of Northern lust and ambition which was subsequently filmed. He also won my Worst Play of 1977 award with a production called Waiting for Sheila, an unintelligible saga which included the nowtotally-forgotten lines: She: 'Why are you staring at my bosom?' He: 'Because I like it. Is there any reason why I shouldn't?' She: 'No. I do my share of crutch-watching. Does that shock you?'.
Braine's latest effort, which started last week, is a three-part extravaganza called Stay With Me Till Morning (Yorkshire), based, we are told, on an earlier novel of the same title. This is a sort of a North Country Dallas featuring unpleasant people going to bed with one another. The central figure is Mrs Lendrick (played by Nanette Newman), a blowsy colour-supplement sort of woman drifting about looking bored and randy. Miss Newman made some capital prior to this series about how she steadfastly refused, unlike some of the other actresses in Mr Braine's play, to appear in the nude, though this did not stop her posing for the TV Times cover with a yawning cleavage. As with Braine's earlier 1977 adaptation it was difficult to follow what was going on. There seemed to be a lot of characters drifting about interested either in money or sex or both. One might have hoped that after all these years Braine would have managed to raise his sights higher than this. He is after all now 59 and ought to have learned enough from his long life to enable him to say something interesting about the human predicament. Not so.
I may have spoken too soon about the good effects of Mr Humphrey Burton's departure from his post of Head of the BBC's Arts and Music Department. Over the weekend we were given a massive dose of Sir Georg Solti, with Mr Burton still very much in evidence as introducer, interviewer, director etc. No less than three 55-minute interviews were broadcast on three successive nights, not to mention three hour-long concerts with Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Like so many of Burton's programmes the interviews were clumsy. Solti was put on a large sofa with a coffee pot, cups and glasses in front, while a number of unidentified figures sat to one side of him occasionallY prompting him or laughing obsequiously at his little jokes. All their interjections, however, were inaudible. Kultur-meister Burton was seated diagonally across from the Maestro, so that only his profile was visible. His manner on this occasion was very similar to that of Roy Plomley of Desert Island Discs fame. Thus: `And then, I believe you moved to Frankfurt? That was in '56 was it not?' Apart from that his questions were of a banality reminiscent of Frostie, `How would you like to be best remembered?' being a typical example. Like most of Mr Burton's heroes, Solti is not a very interesting man or even an outstanding musician; he is certainly not worth three 55-minute interviews. I imagine he is quite efficient at directing operas in a dictatorial way. But he gave no sign of any real warmth or humour, unlike his fellow Hungarian, Sandor Vegh, whose master classes are currently being repeated on BBC2. Vegh is a real musician, but because he is not to be seen in huge opera houses surrounded by rich and famous people he does not merit the Burton treatment. I can only hope that what we are now seeing is the last splurge of Burton's Very Wonderful Musicians Promotions Ltd. (I noticed, incidentally, that Monday's concert of Wagner was not a BBC programme but produced by Unitel, the German TV company which employs Burton as a freelance Producer.) James Bellini came to the end of his Peculiar little series called Rule Britannia on Thursday. This has been going on for six weeks and having watched it intermittently I failed to discern any purpose in it at all. Bellini strikes a vague anti-Establishment Pose reminiscent of the young Anthony Sampson and this goes down well with ITV Who like to be anti-Establishment so long as there is nothing too specific. The series fizzled out with a number of clichés about the menace of telephone tapping and the right-wing bias of judges. Six days later I can't remember anything else about it.
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