Television
Light relief
Peter Levi
The election was a tiring exercise for the humble viewer, because never have all the arguments been so thoroughly covered, and never have there been so many polls, never so many fanciers and critics of the styles of the warring advertising agencies. It was like betting on a race between the mercury in three thermometers. The meti- culous fairness of Mr Dimbleby and all his colleagues combined with their attempt to focus on needle points to produce a sensa- tion of equal unfairness to everyone, be- cause it is unfair to most politicians to let them be seen at all on television. And the sheer quantity of material was overwhelm- ing. The British nation is now extremely tired of politics. There were too many Davids; Mr Kinnock lost his cool, not that
I blame him; the Prime Minister appeared harsh and patronising, which I am sure she is not, and the spectacle of Mr Thatcher being dragged through yet another election and behaving perfectly was heart-rending.
The rest is small beer, so I have been watching the ads, and defiantly enjoying Porterhouse Blue (ITV). Thank God it is
about Cambridge and not Oxford. It came over as a farce, and very like real life. If I had to choose between the Oxford of
Brideshead on television and the Cam- bridge of Porterhouse Blue, I would cer- tainly put my name down for Cambridge,
because the dons seem so much nicer than ours. The book by Tom. Sharpe is a cheerful and vigorous cartoon, to be read once with pleasure and discarded, but the adaptation by Malcolm Bradbury is skilful. Maybe they are the two separate halves of a good novelist. Still, I suspect it was just the camera, with its opportunity for con- vincing vignettes like the Chaplain and the Underporter, that made one suspend dis- belief. The full blast of luxury and inso- lence, the ghastliness of the sober refor- mers, and the funniness of those earnestly discussing vasectomy in the Third World in the next street, are all curiously true to life as it once was, and in Cambridge, let us hope, still is. The name Porterhouse is dangerously close to Peterhouse, but when the book first appeared I was told by someone who should know that quite another college was intended.
Only in the silly season of an election would I have liked this ridiculous and mannered bit of foolery quite so much.
The head porter carried it; I believed in him absolutely, and could have sworn he came from somewhere like Derbyshire and had seen service in the marines. This reminds me that in election television the Alliance failed to make the best use of their marine commando spokesman on education, who got 5 out of 200 for French O levels, knows Chinese and would make an excellent Prime Minister. The boredom of over-exposed national leaders sent me reeling to the ads. There was a clever one about sports shoes with two young men breathing at one another in the changing- rooms. Car advertisements were as deadly and useless as usual. British Airways had a stupid and disgusting advertisement based on what looked like the Tre Scaline in Rome, and implying that Italians are idiots speaking an incomprehensible language. It ought to be actionable. Lucozade was enjoyable.
Dartmoor — the Threatened Wilderness (Channel 4) was well photographed, ex- tremely informative, and less predictable than one feared. It began by salivating over pseudo-poetic language, with music played too loud. But when it calmed down, the music by Simon Webb turned out to be very good, and the commentary when it was not 'voice over' much more useful and engaging. This is a series of four seasons on Dartmoor, which ten or 15 years ago I
aspired to make, but I would not have done it a tenth as well. Nothing has so much improved as films of this kind when they are good. The Marcos Millions film (BBC 2) was not as exciting, but it was good light entertainment. We saw Mrs Marcos's 2,600 pairs of abandoned shoes, and the bedside mirror which lit up at the bleep of its digital clock to transform itself into a hideous photograph of the unhappy couple. We saw Marcos evasive or lying like a trooper, always an interesting sight until the pressure gets too strong and the repulsive power figure becomes a grotes- que victim, and one switches off. I am glad they are not televising the trial of Barbie.
You have to look a long way for enter- tainment during elections. To catch the Pink Panther (BBC 1) you needed to be watching at 6.35 a.m. You almost had to be a pink panther. Late at night there was a spaghetti western with a samurai in it called Red Sun (ITV) and a programme on Mongolian music (Channel 4), but I had no heart for either.
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