Television
Food for thought
Wendy Cope
As it's Christmas, something cheerful and frivolous from the electronic bran-tub — how about an exhibition of surrealist hats? It took place in New York and was featured on Frocks on the Box (ITV) last week. Among the exhibits were a Christ- mas pudding hat, an egg-and-bacon hat and a fish-and-chips hat. To my delight, the organiser of this harmless lunacy, a man called Richard Martin, didn't regard it as frivolous at all. In an interview with Muriel Gray, he explained that the show suggested the possibility of taking a serious approach to fashion and 'thinking about clothing as something more than simply the garment'. How, then, should we aspiring highbrows think of clothing? As 'the very idea of the garment itself . Ah yes.
Since Frocks on the Box is one of those zappy, modern programmes where things are done differently, interviewer and inter- viewee stood face-to-face behind an ex- hibit. From where I was sitting I couldn't see what the exhibit was meant to be. On closer inspection it looked like a sausage- and-onion hat. Next year you'll be able to see it at the V & A.
Really, there's something a bit surreal about spending one's time peering at a coloured screen and writing down things `What if heaven turns out to be multi- like 'sausage-and-onion hat'. Better, perhaps, to watch the serious programmes and write down things like 'Ken Surname, lecturer in sociology at . . .' That's usually as far as I get before the caption goes off the screen. On the other hand, if the captions were on longer, I would miss even more of what Ken Surname has to say. There is no answer to it, except to watch him twice.
There were lots of captioned experts on this Sunday's Weekend World (ITV), in a programme designed to remind us that it is neither right nor prudent to ignore the predicament of the young unemployed. Entitled 'The Underclass', it focused main- ly on young men, pointing out that many of them have no sense of belonging to society and are creating their own values 'set apart from the rest of us'. A Liverpudlian talked of going out 'on the rob' as part of everyday life, 'just like going shopping'. One expert said that the drug scene pro- vides a way of life for some young people and a career path for the ambitious. Another explained that unemployment often runs in families because the children of unemployed parents are under less pressure to find jobs themselves, and have less knowledge of the world of work and fewer contacts. In the time available the programme could only glance at possible answers to what Ralf Dahrendorf called 'a real challenge to our values, our norms and our morality'.
Cruelty to children is another. On the day the inquiry into the Kimberley Carlile case published its findings, Channel 4's Dispatches presented a rehearsed reading of some of the evidence. A tragic story emerged of fatal mistakes, made partly as the result of understaffing. The program- me was well edited and featured impecc- ably low-key performances by a disting- uished cast. It seemed to me a very good way of dealing with this sad and emotive subject-matter. And, as it's Christmas, it's as well to reflect on the fact that hell is sometimes situated behind the closed doors of a family home.
It's also the last Spectator of the year time to look back on the most memorable programmes of 1987. The truth is that very little comes to mind. One thing I do remember is Sylvia Sims's performance as the vicious bourgeois matron in Intimate Contact (ITV). Alma Cullen's serial about Aids, though far from perfect, deserves to be commended. Broadcast at a time when Aids panic was at its height, it was a powerful plea for humane attitudes to- wards sufferers and their families.
One thing I'd like to see on television in 1988 is a book programme that deals only with paperbacks. Read All About It, since it featured books that I could actually afford to buy, often caused me to rush out to the nearest bookshop next day. If there already is such a programme, and I have failed to notice it, please don't write and tell me until after Christmas.
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