Television
Soul food
Peter Levi
There are days when television is a balm. It runs like ointment down the beard of Aaron, even unto the hem of his garment. The machine is quite shameless, because, however it may have disgraced itself, it just goes on rubbing against. your eyesight every time you wake up. It wants to please.
They have been rerunning Peter Usti- nov's Russia (BBC 2) in the early after- noon, and that is a good example. The production is very bad indeed: even the script is lethargic and most of the jokes flimsy. But the architecture of Leningrad can hardly fail, and there, is music. And Ustinov is a pleasant fellow. In fact, until I saw him a bit wooden in this film, I thought he was pure genius. He was amiable enough to detain my attention, at least. Admittedly, I had him on by mistake, waiting for some show jumping.
Show jumping is deadly in the field, but on the screen it can be thrilling. The camera can see better than ordinary mor- tals, just as it sees more of a race than we do. The criticism one can bring of that is that racing on television is too interested in the actual races and the betting, which I assume supports the weight of the entire industry. One never gets to see a horse in a field like the one in Larkin's poem, or to know anything about horses in training.
I learnt more about breeding from a modest and in many ways very silly little film on BBC 2 called Holiday Outing than ever before, on or off television. The whole thing scarcely lasted five minutes: it featured an inane girl going to the races at Newmarket on the Orient Express, but for just a minute or two we were shown round a stud by a sensible and articulate young man. I admit betting is the whole point of racing; my father could pick winner after winner on television when he never could at a racecourse. Because of being sober do
you think? Still, there is much more • to horses, and they are certainly photogenic enough to warrant a deeper investigation than they get.
Television in the afternoon is a vice of this time of summer. It happens that we have no infants in the house, so I have been losing touch with children's televi- sion. Noticing an explosion in the press about our being on the point of losing it altogether, I attempted to investigate. Like children's books and the old Children's Hour and the primary school's outing to the Isle of Wight, it is something we have taken for granted, yet it may be irreplace- able and is certainly a national treasure. But the first day I chose to look, Children's BBC .(BBC 1) was the Puppy's Further Adventures (repeat), On the Waterfront Revisited (repeat), Newsround (lasting five minutes) and The Lowdown (repeat). Then came Neighbours (repeat). Chil- dren's ITV was a hit livelier, and it had Scooby Doo on it, which I actually like rather than admire.
Plainly, all channels are in the doldrums at present, with programme after pro- gramme of old films at all times of day. In the autumn we get some new Dennis Potter, thank God. I just hope all parties are spending an equivalent amount on children's television. There is something to be said for the view that a television set is a children's toy, not meant for adults at all. Even the magnificent nature films we sometimes get shown, like Survival Special (ITV) on Scottish forests, are as much for children as for us.
I do not want to be misunderstood about this. Personally, I like seeing old films, and I do believe watching and even making television — even, at the extreme limit, writing about television— can be or could be a serious adult activity. Television is entertainment, but so is poetry : at their hest they are entertainment of what you might call the soul. So is The Spectator, damn it; but in August this feels like a losing battle.
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