Television

Anger, God and Glossies

By CLIFFORD HANLEY

VIEWING for the housebound loafer threw up another little pearl last week when the 110C lunchtime programme Let's Imagine collected half a dozen people and invited them to vent their anger. It was all

but for once the panel gbetohaysaedyA: about education and the theatre and gardens an',

lquhaiedt and well

Britain in general.

town-planning and the woeful condition 01 The anger was a sustained seethe rather than a high-pitched scream, but the excitement was profound. I judge the success of these discussions by the number of times I shout at the screen, and this time my wife had to turn up the volume

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to drown me. We need a lot more considered anger in television.

And this brings me back to the religious Pro-

grammes on both networks. Previously, 1 have, hoped for the sake of the Christian message that these would acquire some good red blood. but recent weeks have convinced me that the entire idea is a waste of time. For instance, 1 sat

,.

through one earnest forum wrestling with the urgent problem of Getting the Message Acros presumably getting it across to woolly-mind A atheists like myself—and the suspicion davvne", on me that it's comfier for professional Christians to discuss was and means than it Is for them to give a hint about what the Message is. When these discussions do get round o the Message turns out to be a load of intstitu tionalised garbage. The one quality shared by almost all these cold-gospellers is dimness. It's been rather a glum week for drama, I0 which nobody ever seemed to laugh, and „Ik which our hip contemporary writers were shrt1"00 to size by an old Raymond Chandler film is Sunday afternoon. Maybe the comparison unfair, but I found Farewell My Lovely 3111/ alloyed delight even after all those years. os I won't be so silly as to make compares between this little masterpiece and the fran,l; industry of series television. All the same. serind television ought to be aiming at something, a of a closer look at the extremely expensive Mae a1 World fills me with dismay. It secull astonishing that people at this late date " to pour out money on a dramatic entertaintlacen, without checking that it contains the one ess.E: character. Apart from Dial 999 With tial element that keeps viewers

The answers are all blanks. But I really call,

I pose the remember any series so utterly bereft of acti:i recognisable human characteristics as but What glossy. The hero is an ace photographer, but vve kind of pictures does he take? Did he haoc, mother? How much money does he earn? V he have good dreams?.

questions seriously, because I hate to see Pe ou wasting money, even TV tycoons. Even if Ya 0 a demand nothing more of each instalment than good punch-up (I like a punch-up. myself)

need human beings for punching. And

So end the raving of the first lesson. talking of character, Maigret is as good as