Television
Uttering banalities
Alexander Chancellor
Iknow practically nothing about tennis, but to judge by the Wimbledon commen- taries on television, there is practically nothing to know. Watching the Becker- Curren final on Sunday afternoon, I occa- sionally found myself uttering banalities like 'That was beautifully played', only to hear the same words coming back at me from the television set. However, the commentators were certainly more expert than me in their ability to peer into the minds of the players. Kevin Curren admit- tedly looked pretty nervous and gloomy. But when it was disclosed that he was 'imperceptibly' regaining his confidence, the word 'imperceptibly' seemed entirely appropriate.
As to Becker, the commentators com- pletely changed their tune as the match went on. At the beginning much was made of his extreme youth and the sort of psychological pitfalls he • was bound to encounter. But as he continued to win points with blithe self-confidence, his youth and its supposed disadvantages were forgotten. We were told instead he was a man 'completely at peace with himself'. If only, they started saying, Curren could be 'completely at peace with himself as well! It is a state of mind which, so we are told, Curren can only achieve when he is dream- ing of the safari park which it is his ambition one day to establish in Africa. But one must assume that he couldn't get his mind off his ferocious opponent, for the confidence imperceptibly gained imper- ceptibly drained away again, with the result that he lost the match. The superla- tives rightly lavished upon Becker empha- sised more his psychological maturity than his remarkably Vorsprung durch Technik, to borrow an expression from the horrible television advertisements for Audi motor- cars. I began to feel that if only I could achieve such maturity and be completely at peace with myself, I too might become a Wimbledon champion, even though I can- not play tennis.
Whatever the limitations of the com- mentary, there was little to criticise in the cameras' coverage of the match. Their ability to replay instantly in slow motion a rally that had only just ended seemed to me little short of miraculous. It was also essential to one's understanding of what was going on, for these people who are completely at peace with themselves hit the ball so hard that it is often impossible to see it. In slow motion, too, one could really appreciate Becker's extraordinary deter- mination to reach the ball wherever it happened to be.
I had been rather expecting some great change in the Channel 4 current affairs programme Face the Press following the replacement of Anthony Howard as pre- senter by Gillian Reynolds, for what other- wise was the purpose of the change? But in fact the programme is little different from what it was before. Miss Reynolds does her job well, but so did Mr Howard. If there is anything to choose between them, I would say that I marginally preferred Mr Howard because he made things a little more animated. Last Sunday the guest was Mrs Helen Suzman, the South African liberal politician. Her interrogators,, apart from Miss Reynolds, were Mr Donald Trelford, editor of the Observer, and Mr Peregrine Worsthorne of the Sunday Telegraph. The questions were thoughtful, the answers articulate, but it wasn't exactly gripping.
In this column last week Peter Levi reviewed Great Collectors (BBC2) and expressed surprise at finding its subject, the American publisher Malcolm Forbes, so uninteresting. I think he would have preferred Sir Alfred Beit, who was the subject of last Sunday's episode. Sir Alfred displayed great charm, as well as much enthusiasm and knowledge about his re- markable collection of old masters at Russ- borough in County Wicklow. The pro- gramme was also well constructed, effort- lessly weaving the history of the Beit family, who were originally South African diamond magnates, into its portrait of Sir Alfred and Lady Beit at home in Ireland among their treasures.
The bad news of the week is that TV-am has been so successful that ITV wants to extend its diet of rubbish for housewives and children to cover the whole morning up till lunchtime. The good news is that the BBC is now too broke to be able to compete.
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