Television
Plugging away
Richard Ingrams
with every week that passes the BBC's output gets more and more trashy. One leafs through the Radio Times with in- creasing desperation looking for something that might have some merit. A typically rubbishy new programme which I saw for the first time this week is called Choices (BBC1). It is based on the unoriginal idea of filling a studio with people, confronting them with a panel of three 'experts' and a chairperson called Libby Purves who talks through her teeth, and then setting them to discuss the issues of the day. Because this is a God-slot programme the questions are given a religious slant, though this is of a predictable variety. On Sunday an earnest young man with a beard raised the old chestnut of the morality of advertising, which was duly tossed to and fro between the Bishop of Birmingham, a lady promi- nent in the advertising world and another lady engaged in some kind of academic work. When the topic had been squeezed of every possible drop of interest, with endless appeals from Ms Purves to the audience to say what if anything they had learned from the discussion, they moved on to topic number two: Should women be admitted to the priesthood? Cue for switch-off.
Reverting to the question of advertising, what you never hear in any of these discus- sions is the little matter of plugs and puffs. Anyone on a BBC panel always makes a point of saying that they are not allowed to mention brand names on the air, but at the same time every night the BBC is advertis- ing things in a quite shameful way. Earlier that same evening Dr Jonathan Miller had been introduced on the disastrous new Om- nibus programme as someone who at this moment is engaged on promoting the paperback edition of his book The Body in Question. At the end of the little discussion, which consisted mainly of the doctor telling us how wonderful an interpreter of Shakespeare he is, Barry Norman summed it up by saying 'Very good luck with The Body in Question', despite the fact that the
book had nothing to do with the subject of the programme; and as the Doctor has already, with the help of the BBC, made a small fortune out of his rotten book, it might be thought that luck was a superfluous factor in the situation.
A BI3C newcomer who is also engaged in the business of plugging is Tina Brown, bet-
ter known to some of us as Mrs Harold Evans. She has taken over for the time be- ing as one of the comperes of Film '82
(BBC1), the other being a wet-looking P. G. Wodehouse figure called David
Thomas. Mrs Evans, wide-eyed and with a chirpy little voice, enthused this week about a new film called Reds which lasts for three and a half hours. 'It fizzes with sexual chemistry,' she trilled, 'it is a very talky love story but every word is worth listening to.' David Thomas later gave an extensive plug for another film called Insatiable which he described as 'a continuous sequel of sexual activity' but which anyone else would call straight porn. But, once again, I suspect I am the only person who objects to the BBC giving free advertising to this type of Soho rubbish.
Police (BBC!) moved into the world of high comedy this week when, following a tip-off, 18 policemen were sent to the coun- try home of Laura, Duchess of Marlborough, where they surprised her in the company of octogenarian Sir Arthur Bryant, with whom, I think, her name has been romantically linked in the past, and a funny old painter johnnie called Adrian Daintree. Sir Arthur took one look at the plain-clothes fuzz and the television cameramen and became quite justifiably alarmed. But he was later reassured that the massive police operation was a bona fide one. The Duchess, a gawky-looking woman in trousers with a nicotine-stained voice, whom I once had the pleasure of sitting next to at a Foyles Literary Luncheon, seemed remarkably unperturbed by the whole thing and happily allowed 18 policemen to lie in wait in the darkness while she and Sir Arthur and Mr Daintree went off to bed. Of course the burglars never turned up, though the police found a ladder and a jemmy in a nearby field. One of them later blamed poor Mr Daintree for giving the alarm: 'You could hear him snor- ing and rocking the bed about'. This seem- ed a bit hard on the old boy, when 18 policemen, not to mention several BBC men, had been trampling round the house
and garden all day — enough to alarm even the most moronic burglar, I would have thought.
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