Television
Screen print
Wendy Cope
Abby has a nice new hairstyle. Victor has a big new car and another nutty girlfriend. Roxanne seems to be per- manently cured of longing for Arnold, thank goodness. Stuart and Ann have been quarrelling and looking for a therapist. Michael and Gracie also had a quarrel but they are not yet seeking professional help. I had been looking forward to the return of LA Law (ITV) so much that I was expect- ing to be disappointed. But no, it still makes an hour go as fast as a box of chocolate truffles. Now and again I find myself thinking about questions arising from the programme. How would Roxan- ne react if Arnold decided he was in love with her after all? Why doesn't Victor go out with Abby? How often can I get away with writing about it?
In Campaign (BBC 2) life still seems to be pretty much of a nightmare for every- body. Sarah's husband came back to dis- cuss arrangements for their child and they were interrupted by the telephone every two minutes. When she was summoned to an important board meeting, he attacked the phone with a blunt instrument. Sarah is too English and too busy to think about going to a therapist but it is a pity she hasn't invested in an answering machine.
Out of a sense of duty I missed the first part of Campaign and watched the second programme in the new Channel 4 series Woman in View. Having done my duty, I might choose to watch it again some time. The programme is presented by two nice women, Jackie Spreckley and Tess Wood- craft, who need time to settle down and gain confidence. The contents included a very good cartoon about going to the hairdresser and an item on the new maga- zine Essentials. Then there was a look at the question of who does the housework in homes where the wife goes out to work. According to a recent report from the Family Policy Studies Centre, 18 per cent of men do no housework at all and 13 per cent only do the washing-up. It didn't say what percentage manages to do the washing-up properly and actually get it clean. The week's biggest disappointment was The World According to Smith and Jones (ITV), although you had to admire the professionalism with which the two come- dians smiled their way through a dud script. The theme was medicine. There were lots of gory film clips and Griff said they made him feel sick. They made me feel sick too and I didn't laugh at all.
Wish Me Luck (ITV), the drama series about women agents in World War II, is less than compelling so far. Flashbacks don't usually cause me any problems but I was thoroughly confused during episode one. It will probably get more exciting when the women arrive in France. Until then one can at least enjoy the Forties dresses and hats.
In Off The Page (Channel 4) Ted Hughes was interesting on the subject of men returning from the war and on a number of other topics too. 'Heaney, Hughes and Hill and Harrison — /Top poets' names begin with H', writes Peter Porter in one of the poems in his new book The Automatic Oracle. Harrison seems to be on the box all the time these days. That the Laureate appears less often is not, I imagine, for want of trying on the part of the television people. Somehow they got him out of his wellington boots and into a studio but they couldn't make him look as if he felt at home there or persuade him to speak to the camera very much. Some of the time he looked down at the desk in front of him, occasionally he seemed to be addressing an unseen audience to one side of the camera. It was a likeable perform- ance.
I also liked the fact that the poet had put his foot down about the use of photographs or film to illustrate his poems. All we got, while he read them, was the printed page on the screen. As an aid to concentration, this is much more helpful than pictures. The fact that people can see the words, as well as the poet's face, seems to me an adequate justification for putting a prog- ramme like this on television rather than radio.
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