Radio
Suitable case for treatment
Michael Vestey
In One Fat Englishman, Kingsley Amis sets Roger Micheldene loose in America determined to hate everything he finds. In A Retiring Fellow, Radio Four unleashed what sounded like another fat and even more boorish Englishman, William Don- aldson, on four suitable places for retire- ment. The difference is, Micheldene had a certain style and wit, the flatulent Donald- son is about as funny as an intravenous drip.
There were a couple of good jokes over the four, weekly programmes but not much else. We had to believe the BBC deception that this London impresario and humorist (author of the Henry Root letters) was genuinely searching for a retirement haven.
It was too improbable for me to accept that one of the producers of Beyond the Fringe would consider Bournemouth as his start- ing point. It might just have worked if Don- aldson hadn't decided to be nasty to almost everyone he met. This and subsequent pro- grammes would have been saved if he'd tempered his choler with warmth or affec- tion.
In Bournemouth he went to a tea dance and, not surprisingly, discovered it was full of elderly widows and divorcees from the north. 'This is seriously depressing,' he mumbled into the microphone. 'It's fright- ful. Is this what life comes to? It's unforgiv- able what happens to us.' To the manager of the expensive Royal Bath Hotel he says, `I'm a bit common, like you.' The manager decided he didn't like Donaldson.
Examining the prospects of getting on the social lists, he asks about the existence of café life in Bournemouth. He was look- ing, he said, for cafés full of young philoso- phers discussing their latest unpublished books. 'Well, perhaps Paris is the best place for you,' said the town's social ring- master sensibly. Drooling over a waitress, he says, 'I've found everyone unpleasant here.' She asks how long he's been there. `A day.' His verdict on the resort? Cold, horrible and raining. `There's something fake about Bournemouth.' He took pretty much the same view of Fowey in Cornwall and Tus- cany. Britons in Tuscany, he decided, were rather third rate. He didn't want to bump into John Mortimer and Bernard Levin. 'I don't want Rumpole of the Bailey under the next olive tree.' This joke fell flat.
Talking to two pleasant married art his- torians he mutters, `I can't take much more of this. Art historians. They're not Sir Harold Acton but they're boring nonethe- less.' His view of Tuscany? 'I can't wait to get home.' Of the four programmes, the last, in Marbella, was the least unfunny. After meeting, but wisely not lingering with, the former London gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser (he was strangely polite to the dear old torturer), he visited a Spanish fiesta.
`My idea of a fiesta is a slow march to slack drums, some effigy of someone reli- gious being carried by a four-year-old, and a donkey being set fire to. The only effigies I've seen so far are of Mickey Mouse and Batman . . . not a donkey in sight.' These were the best lines of the whole series.
Donaldson is soon letting rip with the ex- pats. 'You strike me as being a very embit- tered little lot.' Now, I assume that the rudeness was part of the joke as Donaldson is supposed to be a humorist but it failed miserably; it simply didn't work. Unfortu- nately, another series is being planned.
Another series on Radio Four that falls short is America Dreaming (Tuesday), writ- ten and presented by Simon Dring. A World Tonight special, it purports to take the political temperature of 'backyard' America. So far, it has demonstrated the weakness inherent in the general approach of its editor, Anne Koch, in that it's heavily reliant on anecdotal reportage to the extent that one wonders exactly what the overall point of it is.
There's a place for this kind of reporting and Dring is very good at it (and at that level it's well produced by Judith Melby), but the series lacks a real context except for the cliché that the American dream has gone sour and that this will influence the next presidential election. It was ever thus.
The American dream itself was always a cliché much cherished by radio and televi- sion producers, and now its so-called decline is lovingly nurtured. There must be a special American Dream department at the BBC, eagerly monitoring clues to its demise. You know the sort of thing: Head of American Dream Department, (HAMD): Good news! The farmlands are in decline, industry is downsizing . . . there's not much prospect of getting rich in Des Moines, Waterloo or Harper these days. Deputy Head of American Dream Depart- ment (DHAMD): Great. Let's get out there and blame the Republicans and the Bible Belt.
Chief Assistant to Head of American Dream Department (CAHAMD), excitedly: Thank heavens! The end of the American dream at last!
Any fool can take a microphone to small towns in middle America and come up with loquacious talkers. Americans are so friendly, frank and helpful they're a gift. It's lazy journalism, unfocused and lacking in contextual analysis, useful only to illus- trate. Perhaps next week's edition, the last of the three, will attempt more stringent analysis — but something tells me it won't.
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