TELEVISION and RADIO
Get Out the characters did not have con- vincing enough reality to stand lengthy close examination. Brevity is the wit of television.
The problem of TV comedy haunts any number of funny programmes which don't quite come off. Fred Emney, in his bluff take-off of the marginal entrepreneur can be very funny—but Emney Enterprises is not a going concern. Not that Jack Jackson with a lu..lf-hour of endless gimmicks consti- tutes a good example of television technique. The zr.ny style with its carpet bag of old- fashioned cinema tricks aims to get surprise laughs--si dly, the special effects have all been seen before.
Donr.ld Wilson's flimsy half-hour play, Out of Bounds, was a weak gag which could not be sustained even by the combined talents of Anne Crawford, Diana Churchill, George Benson and Michael Barry directing. When the pay-off to a story is so weak—the two girls fight over a man who turns out to be a bore-- -there must be quality in the dialogue and in the characterisation to sustain interest. Out of Bounds was put together like an expensive fancy waistcoat—no essential part of any man's dress.
The Sunday and Thursday play, Ninety Sail, wlls a restoration pageant in the Cavalier interest, with Pepys standing up as the Little Man who created the British Navy. Mervyn Johns always plays a superb Little Man, even struggling against a full wig.
Wilfred Pickles's Friday programme, Ask Pickles, hit a new low in sentimentality. Of course the Pickles Santa Claus act with its elderly ladies and children and animals is a great success—but is it really as heart- warmingly kind as it plays?
WOLF MANKOWITZ
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