ARTS
Thirty-two years ago, when Kenneth Clark was engaged on that ground-break- ing adventure Civilisation, Huw Wheldon, the controller of BBC Television, said that in future the medium would be judged by its willingness to make such ambitious pro- grammes. As television coverage of the arts panders ever more to the modish, the tran- sient and the downright tacky, it seems a good time to remind his successors of their birthright.
The obvious place to start is The South Bank Show if only because its presenter- editor, Melvyn Bragg, began his career in the early Sixties under Wheldon on Moni- tor, the Corporation's pioneering arts pro- gramme. The SBS (back on 26 September with the comedian Paul Merton) was once a pioneer itself, carrying interviews with the likes of Pinter, Golding and Stoppard to large Sunday night audiences, happy to treat viewers like adults, not children who are easily bored.
Nowadays it has given up any attempt to do missionary work. In recent seasons the programmes have included features on the drama series, Band of Gold; Michael Flat- ley, the Irish-American folk dancer; and a batty pop singer from Reykjavik. In other words, hookers, hoofers and poseurs. This is straight from the glorious world of Peter Simple.
In the course of this pliant lurch towards mediocrity, designed to indulge those with films, shows and records to plug, Bragg's argument has always been that, without the SBS, the arts would have no voice on prime-time television. This no longer holds water. If it is to be no more than a reposi- tory for whatever is considered fashionable, or commercially successful, the programme lacks a sure foundation. Better to scrap it than to muddle on as it is.
These days, when the show features a `serious' writer, it is no longer a first-rater like Miller or Naipaul. It tends to be some- body like kin Banks, who has acquired a kind of celebrity by not belonging to the lit- erary tribes of London. A more interesting subject by far would have been another Scot, Allan Massie, who has written an impressive trilogy of novels on post-war Europe and who, having lived abroad, could have shed some valuable light on Britain, past and present. But Massie is, broadly speaking, right of centre, and, as a writer, he prefers old-fashioned virtues like narra- tive and character to literary doodling, so naturally he doesn't get much of a look-in.
Similarly, instead of drooling over Cecilia Bartoli, who is, admittedly, a mellifluous songbird, why not show an audience that may not know it how excellent are some of our home-grown singers? No country in the
Lurching towards mediocrity
Michael Henderson urges the makers of arts programmes to aim high and be bold
world has such an abundance of talented performers in so many different fields, and plenty of them could do with a gentle push. Instead there is a programme about Lucy Gannon, the prolific writer of television drama, whose life makes an interesting tale but whose work neither requires nor merits any further exposure.
If the BBC has not quite plumbed these depths, the day cannot be far off. An Omnibus of recent vintage featured the uncertain gifts of Reeves and Mortimer, a pair of second-division clowns. Morecambe and Wise were the finest double act in liv- ing memory, loved by millions, yet they were never accorded such an honour. In their day, mercifully, people never talked about 'comedic' strategies, and the great fog known as post-modernism had yet to vaporise.
Two strands characterise the tone of these programmes. The first is a belligerent popularism, which sits uneasily alongside the second, a tendency towards pomposity. People who sneer at what they disparage as the 'conventional' arts, in other words those patronised by that easiest of targets, the 'middle class', feel quite happy to theo- rise at length about dross that isn't worth a candle.
The BBC still does some things as well as it ever did. That superb art critic, Robert Hughes, is on a par with Leonard Bern- stein as an explainer of potentially tricky subjects, and Andrew Graham-Dixon opened a few eyes with his series on English art. The Omnibus on Sir Georg Solti, made shortly before his death, was a first-rate example of how to present a seri- ous subject to a large audience without talking down to it.
On the other hand memories are still clear of the abysmal Late Show, which was presented from time to time by a man who looked as if he had come to mend the boil- er. The Late Review, the weekly round-up that survives it, which is back on our screens this week, offers no palliative. It allows Tom Paulin to do some intellectual slum- ming and Tony Parsons to relive his glory days in the sixth form discussion group, but the assembled guests will never constitute a forum for sensible debate.
One looks in vain for the kind of gifted `amateur' who used to drop in to do the occasional turn. On the tenth anniversary of Auden's death in 1983, Robert Robin- son presented a marvellous celebration of the poet's life. That was the real glory of the old BBC, a man turning his hand to something he knew something about for the fun of it, and BBC 2 clearing two hours on a Saturday night to indulge him. Now that style counts for so much more than substance, the world of broadcasting belongs to arid professionals like Michael Jackson, the head of Channel 4, who has never known anything except television, and who seems to understand the world at second-hand, as it appears on the box. Somebody who took a degree in 'media studies', as he did, may well judge every- thing as mere commodity, to be bought and sold. What is required is discrimination, which, in part, involves taking unpopular decisions.
The first thing that makers of arts pro- grammes should do is acknowledge that, on the whole, mass audiences are not interest- ed, and never will be, in what they are doing, so there is little point in trying to grab their attention. The next thing, which follows, is that an appreciation of good work, which demands curiosity and patience, is by definition 'elitist'. Therefore, let us have more elitism, not less, and the confidence not to apologise for it. How otherwise would Clark have made his famous study of civilisation? If the makers of these programmes need a precept, it's fairly simple. 'Art,' wrote Walter Kerr, the American theatre critic, `is a prerequisite for personal and social health.' Come on, you weak-kneed, ratings- obsessed programme-makers, be bold. Po away with the social demographics, the bal- ance sheets and all those wretched market researchers. Aim high.. Let your poison be your cure.
Previous page
