Plea for Intelligence
MR. WOODROW WYATT'S Child's Guide le Middle East Oil in Panorama on MonclaY was as sound a piece of simplification as tele' vision has given us. Mr. Wyatt has neither the house-masterly keenness of Mr. Crawley' nor the tutorial intimacy of Mr. Mayhew; be started his television life as a nervous, jerky bore; but he is becoming, as his good mind begins to control his lack of interviewirll grace, a useful man. And becoming useful the faster because, in nearly every job I've sees him do, the 'editing (particularly good this week) gives as much space and time as 13°,.s, sible to the answers and cuts down to its right size any tendency towards punditing that Mr. Wyatt retains. He has grasped the essentials of this most difficult job with remarkable speed. As his voice grows more confident, his manner more assured, the straightforwardne° of his questioning is biting into his subjects with admirable crispness. And heaven knows, we can certainly do with interviewers. Max , Robertson, who is regrettably seen Ic°' often on Panorama these days, is one a 04 few to have gut hold of the two basic rules that Mr. Wyatt is clearly applying to his ow/1 work: first, ask plain, short questions and wait for plain, longer answers; second. doll„ wave your personality at the screen 100,1 flag. Mr. Dimbleby, on the other hand, still squashes with charm and kindness (too muchoc,
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," charm, too much kindness) the figures he c",, counters. Mr. Chataway looks like a core' and so does his old partner, Mr. Robin 01 , whose breezy enthusiasm makes the A newsreels so much more fitting for the line' living-room at 10.45 than the BBC's continuig insistence on ponderous and earnest ho-bum' It's in the lighter, less news-conscious Pry grammes that the interviewing level is real low. In Town Tonight (so superbly parodies recently 'by Mr. Sellers and company), probably the worst offender in the inoffen9.v brackets; but it's never as bad as the intermix ably jovial chatter that goes on in the give, away, double-your-money, ask-me-another nonsenses which now spot the evening Prcfs grammes (particularly on Channel 9) IiIMr summer rash. Mr. Jerry Desmonde, Hughie Green, above all the braying r'1,,,e Michael Miles—these are surely people '115 could do without. Their merry, merry ilistl,„e as they crow and gurgle over their crinffil victims are becoming insupportable. Ycs'. know the victims are volunteers. They' becoming insupportable too.
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I still plead for more intelligent peorliecir be left alone in front of a camera to talk. .,g Gerald Kelly did this splendidly on Sub 11 stories about Maillol, with their ramtnir repetitions, their stumbles — and t""ep warmth—could never, would never, have hers extracted by one of ,those eager intervieW,ei. asking, 'And what about Maillol's wife, Oro every twenty-eight seconds. Sir Gerald aln1 made up for the appalling over-acting in Morris's desert melodrama earlier in the cv,"5 ing, which actually, in this electronic age. 1:Zip us, had as its pivot that one about the c",..5 who's been making love to his fellow-000o wife. Seldom have so many teeth been gilt,"
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