Contemporary Arts
TELEVISION AND RADIO
IF I remember rightly, the percentage of Spectator readers who (according to the recent questionnaire) do not look at television, is considerable. It is to them, this week, that I address my remarks. Perhaps they have not bought a set because they cannot afford it. Perhaps they lead such full lives that they cannot spare the time to look at it. Perhaps, but I hope not, they are television snobs.
The television snob is one who, when asked if he has got or is going to get a television set, invariably takes the offensive. He cannot reply, as he might if you were asking about a frigidairc or a washing machine, with a simple, unqualified 'No.' Sometimes he says that it harms the eyes or is bad for the chil- dren's morale (what a reflection on his status as a parent), but usually his form of rejoinder is an angry : 'No, I haven't, and I don't intend to either.' The belligerency of this attitude is invariably in proportion to the amount of television experienced: the more belligerent the attitude, the less television seen. It is based on the knowledge that television in this country is mostly enjoyed by artisans; and that it must therefore be pretty 'poor stuff.
Now it is perfectly true that a certain per- centage of television programmes (though not, I think, a very high one) is very poor stuff indeed. There was one such last week, called Showcase, the last word in mediocrity and ineptitude. But it is also true, which the tele- vision snob does not realise, that there is a great variety of other programmes which can add enormously to one's understanding and which cannot be, or for commercial reasons arc not, produced in any other medium.
One does not have to consult one's note- book to remember some of these. Which of us who saw the Coronation ccremohies or the birthday presentation to Sir Winston Churchill is likely ever to forget them? Nor does one need to be an expert on sport to enjoy and learn something about our national games. Press Conference has given us an insight into public personalities which we would never otherwise have obtained, and popular conceptions have gone by the board. That hedonistic potentate, the Aga Khan, was revealed as a man of immense learning, dignity and humour; Beaver- brook, the irrepressible Press-lord, was seen to be old and small and splendid, his ideals shat- tered but his fires still banked and burning; the elegant Eden showed himself for the first time as a statesman of high and impressive stature. Who can have failed to have added to their understanding of music by the programme The Conductor Speaks, or their knowledge of wild life by the films and talks of Peter Scott? Who does not now appreciate Messiah more fully because of Sir Malcolm Sargent? Yet among all the arts perhaps it is the visits to the picture galleries that have taught us most. It is perhaps not generally realised how enor- mously television can sharpen one's apprecia- tion of pictures; for not only does the camera concentrate absolutely the vision (which on a
large canvas in a crowded gallery is very diffi- cult for the human eye) but it also supplies the third dimension of depth. There was a pro- gramme this week on the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, and it was one of the most exquisite things of its kind I have seen and heard.
These are but a few of the pleasures, esthetic and otherwise, which, if the television snob would but realise it, television has given us plentifully in the past and will do again in the future. On this note of gratitude I end my leasehold of this column.
LUDOVIC KENNEDY
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