Television
Artless
Richard Ingrams T did warn Barry Norman a few months 'ago that he was in danger of becoming too much of a good thing. The trouble V the BBC, like all big monopolist orgallis.: Lions, is their tendency to play safe. The no urge to experiment with different Pe°, ple. So when it came to finding a *on' man' for the new-look Omnibus Prm gramme, they didn't look further than young Barry who did good work with his Hollywood Greats and has since been seen chairing various quiz games, tributes to r. G. Wodehouse etc. Omnibus is supposed to be an arts programme, but I have seen . nothing to suggest that Barry, despite 11!5 many good qualities, is an especially artistic sort of chap — but then there was nothing in the disastrous Omnibus programme °All Sunday to suggest that anyone connected with the programme was in any way artistic,: The line seemed to be the old one of 'DO go away with the idea that the arts are tt highbrow pastime for a lot of Long-hatred weirdos. Here we have a popular TV conic' folks, Frankie Howerd (Hello thered Frankie) appearing in Die Fledermaus, here is Richard Baker (the popular, lovable TV newsreader) to outline the plot in even- ing dress; and now don't sign off, viewers' because we have got an item on a new Pia); which the Royal Shakespeare ComparlY putting on, La Ronde, and a pretty e°11; troversial play it is too because it's all about sex, and here are a few scenes from t'' rehearsals showing everyone going at it 111ce a lot of cats on a hot tin roof. (Nothing ltk a bit of simulated intercourse for a Sunda,' evening.)' Alas for Barry! It was all so crass --, „t crude. Someone had the bright idea. that Edward Heath was just the man to in- troduce us to the joys of the Japanese hibition at the Royal Academy, though they might just as well have hired a dead jellyfish for all the enthusiasm that was irnparte0.
Meanwhile, on LWT, in place of Melvyn e Bragg, we had yet another dose of ClIvo James, this time returning to Australia cits visit the scenes of his youth. It nee someone of imagination to do this sort nci thing well. It is not enough to be Mille walking down a street with a voice-over sat' ing, 'I could feel the past coming back to me'. There has to be some spark of poet-nr; But this is something that the prosaic Jamb lacks. He was like a man frantically strikinfie matches all of which refused to light.: In course of an hour one learned nothing about him, nothing about Australia. r as with his earlier film about French fashio; shows, there was a good deal of emPhas,,, on topless girls, a sign of the essential,' trashy nature of Clive's approach to life.„, If anyone is thinking of giving up goo' ing I doubt they would be encouraged to do s? by the sight of Dr Miriam Stoppard grin- ning out of the screen at them on Sunday evenings. Dr Stoppard is more attractive to look at than, say, Dr Jonathan Miller, but she suffers from the tendency of all doctors to address the population as if we were 'a hunch of ten-year-old cretins — 'Now you 211 know that smoking is a horrid, nasty, dirty habit, so we're going to make a really '1G effort to see if we can't do without t,hose unhealthy cigarettes.' This tone of bossy exhortation will not prove to be very el,cifeetive It might even have a counter- Productive effect and make people take to the weed. Apart from anything else, as an ex-40-a-day smoker, Dr Stoppard can't avoid that note of slight smugness that is the great temptation of people who have iteeessfully given things up. Besides which was all made to look far too easy. My 13" view is that it takes about ten years completely to lose the smoking urge, that is to reach a position where you can look calinlY at a smoker and wonder what on earth he is doing with that hideous smelly cth-leet stuck between his lips.
Previous page
