Television
Falling for it
Simon Hoggart
the 11 O'Clock Show (Channel 4) is cult viewing, which means that not many people watch it, but those who do like it very much. It also means long awe-struck arti- cles in the papers, commissioned by editors desperate to show their affinity with yoof. In fact, the programme's dirty little secret is that it is good, but not quite good enough. Allegedly, they have scores of scriptwriters desperate to get just one sin- gle gag on air, yet they run: 'drag hunting — it's the best way to control the local transvestite population', a joke almost as 'It's very obvious that the way to your heart through your stomach isn't going to work with health food.' mildewy as those about Guardian misprints and British Rail sandwiches.
The star of the show is Ali G, a pretend black homeboy who interviews the unwary famous and asks them stupid questions. Last week he did J.K. Galbraith. 'Could I be a millionaire with only £17,000?' he asked. 'No,' said Galbraith. 'Ain't that racist?' asked All G, a line which struck me in context as being borderline racist itself. The problem was that the sage (`Maximum respect to J.K. Galbraith!') clearly realised this was a wind-up and played cheerfully along.
The other main star is Daisy Donovan, a clever young woman masquerading as an air-head. She manoeuvres politicians into agreeing to unspeakable double entendres, often so filthy that most victims don't know what they are. For instance, to Denis Healey, 'Did you fancy Mrs Thatcher? Would you like to give her a pearl neck- lace?' The other day she turned over Sir Leon Brittain, who didn't seem aware of what had hit him. 'Would you say a beef curtain has fallen across Europe? Could you push through the beef curtain?' And later, 'The Tory party is beavering away to unite over Europe, but it's failing. Can William Hague force himself on the split beaver?'
This is not very hard. My brother Paul Hoggart, a TV critic for the Times, phoned
Ms Donovan with a similarly elaborate script and asked her whether she thought politicians 'could see her coming', and if she liked being in character for the filmed bits or 'preferred to feel yourself in the stu- dio'. Like the politicians, she didn't appear to get it.
The long-term difficulty is that politics in any form is regarded now as ratings death, whereas satire is assumed to be popular.
Channel 4 has The 11 o'Clock Show, and Bremner, Bird and Fortune. Apart from the excellent but little-watched Channel 4 News, there is scant coverage of politics and politicians. So we're getting to a situa- tion where we have oodles of devastating satire on people and issues about which we know almost nothing. If Sir Leon exists only as a Channel 4 butt, what's the point of him appearing at all?
Hippies (BBC 2) is 'devised' by the team which wrote Father Ted and is written by half of them, Arthur Mathews. Father Ted
was one of the funniest sitcoms ever to appear on British television. So why is Hip-
pies just toe-curling? I suppose it's because the priests on Craggie Island were decent, likable people, trying to live in an irrational world forced on them by the Church, by lunatic bishops, demented parishioners and their own mad housekeeper.
Hippies is inhabited by stupid people who have created their own dysfunctional world.
So it's their fault. So we don't care about them, except to wonder vaguely why they all look glossy, as if they've just come home from a beauty salon. As my brother Paul points out (we are thinking of setting up
together, Hoggart & Hoggart, Television Critics to the Quality), 'They say if you can remember the Sixties, you weren't there. Arthur Mathews clearly was there.' Per- haps it will improve. Father Ted baffled everyone for several episodes. Whereas How Do You Want Me? by Simon Nye (BBC 2) is very funny. It's set in the countryside, but there's no apple blos- som or sunlight on dappled downs here. All the exterior shots are of decrepit buildings and mud. People lead miserable lives, relieved only by vindictiveness. At one point, the hero, superbly underplayed by Dylan Moran, is so lonely that on getting a wrong number says, 'No, we can still talk...' It's also full of tiny gags, which you miss if you blink, like the bulging eyes of the fisherman as he gazes at the centre- fold in Carp Talk magazine. I like to go channel surfing now and again, and Jumbo Jet on Discovery looked promising. It celebrated the 30th anniver- sary of the Boeing 747. In the end it was terribly dull, being a protracted plug for the Boeing Corporation (no mention of their recent appalling labour problems) and for Virgin Atlantic airlines, who would have had to pay a fortune for such favourable publicity if it had been on a channel anyone watches. (Discovery has less than 1 per cent of the audience share, even among people with. cable or satellite.) It wasn't helped by a clunking script: 'Once the aircraft has arrived at its destina- tion, luggage has to be removed quickly and brought to the baggage claim.' I've seen more exciting Ladybird books.
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