Television
Speaking the Language
By JOHN BRAINE
TONY HANCOCK, Jimmy Edwards and Bernard Braden are the three most reliable guides I know into that realm of comedy north of Custard Pie and Mother-in-Law Land in which, for half an hour, '----71c-44 one can forget income-tax and H-bomb. Hancock is the most technically accomplished, but I.don't like the way in which his stooge, Sid James, so effortlessly makes a stooge out of him. Even in jest, I can't stomach defeat. My heart always warms to Edwards, but he plays a little too much on the one note.
Braden is my favourite, because I feel that we speak the same language.. His main appeal for me is that he's relaxed and deeply disrespectful. He's capable of development, too. One day, when free speech comes to this island, I shall look forward to him spending all his energies in making fun of politicians. (I want the fun to be unkind, malicious, cynical, and totally irreverent.) I would rather that he never again mentioned the Studio Manager, the Head of Light Entertainment, the Board of Governors, or indeed the BBC. Band Wagon squeezed the last drop out of that particu- lar formula some twenty years ago.
But I am cavilling. I am very grateful both for the Glucosated Milk commercial, 'The Case of The Listless Burglar,' and the money commercial —'Shop at The Bank of England for all your coins.' This is legitimate, because in aiming at TV advertisement one also aims at a larger target, advertisement itself. Gaz' Gazoo's Method musi- cal was well up to standard, too, as was the Professor's talk. The Professor is a bumbling old gentleman who explains the miracles of, or, in his own words, gives a manifold sort of complex. picture of, the miracles of modern science. The style of his talk was vaguely reminiscent of Robert Benchley's Treasurer's Report, and none the worse for that.
From Mr. Gerald Durrell's To Bat ut For Beef I expected an intelligent and lively programme about animals. And what is enthralling about animals is their absolute dissimilarity to human beings. But the antics of Mr. and Mrs. Durrell and the chimpanzee Cholmondley, wearing a Fair Isle pullover and a paper nappy, were nauseating. Cholmondley—with dazzling wit the Radio Times states that he's known to his friends as Chumley•—has evidently a repertoire of two tricks. He drinks tea, and he attacks Mrs. Durrell if she makes a fuss of Mr. Durrell. (I must say that neither of these activities strikes me as being out of the ordinary.) The animal did drink some tea, with assistance, but refused to be jealous. We were treated to a dissertation on the failure to pot-train him, and that was about all. Except that Mr. Durrell at one point dropped hint a kiss.
Perhaps I'm un-English, but I abominate this sort of thing. It isn't that I dislike animals, but I like them too well to –dish the spectacle of one being made into a parody of a human baby. But I'm sure that Mr. Durrell can make a better job of this programme when he ceases to under- estimate the intelligence of his audience and puts zoology before showmanship.
But even this programme was crammed with entertainment when compared with the Perry Como Show. What possible excuse the BBC has for spending dollars on •this gallimaufry of old songs, old dance routines and limp wisecracks. I cannot fathom. Honour was retrieved by the film of the opera Boris Godunor. This was not only magnificent opera, but magnificent spectacle. In fact, it seemed to me to rise well above the con- ventions of opera, to say something worth saying about the price paid for power. It was almost oppressively authentic throughout; this, one felt with a shock of recognition, was one's own pic- ture of sixteenth-century. Russia. And, paradoxi- cally, there were Moments when the statements made were so universal in their application that only details like the making of the Sign of the Cross from right to left reminded me that this was Russia. The most heartening realisation of all was that its values, which are Christian values (`And you will have to face the judgment of mankind as you will have to face the judgment seat of God'), must surely still be accepted by the Russian people. The making of this film in the USSR was, if you like, the tribute paid by vice to virtue. But the virtue is still there in the hearts of the people.
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