13 MAY 1955, Page 20

TELEVISION AND RADIO

TIM BBC seemed to me guilty of over- estimating the public interest and even the significance of VE Day ten years after. But in spite of some inanities in stuffing the election gag into its own mouth the event produced some good broadcasting. It was worth taking us round Europe to hear about peaceful pur- suits and the manufacture of ploughshares. It was a sound idea to revive Western Approaches on television—solid proof of the fact that how- ever submissive it may seem sometimes the BBC does not entirely support the policy of smarming the Germans all the time.

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The best choice of the lot, I thought, was The River Line, The contradictory qualities of Charles Morgan's writing might seem danger- ous stuff to Light Programme mentalities on the small screen but it came off excellently. The dull passages were not half as tiresome as television's attempts to be bright in the drama department, and the exciting flashback to Occupied France went with a pace that nobody seems able to put into supposedly fast and thrilling serials like The Mulberry Accelerator. I noticed for the first time that Morgan has, more than you might think in common with C. E. Montague. The unreality of his stylish dialogue is caused by making ordinary people use words with a precision unknown outside the most pedantic circles. Yet this purely literary form of talk is used to tell a story of action, and used successfully. A good play can do wonders with BBC acting, too. and the cast in this one reacted sharply indeed. Rosalie Crutchley gave the best woman's performance I have seen since Googic Withers, but Sarah Lawson was close behind, and among the men James Donald, Robert Harris and John West- brook got well under the skin of Morgan's complicated characters. There may be some deep reason why I have never enjoyed anything of Morgan's in the theatre and seldom enjoyed anything as much on the drama side of tele- vision. At the moment I can only think it is that the closeness of the camera in some way dilutes the thickness of the verbiage and brings out what the eye misses in the-theatre because it has so much farther to stray when the author turns to philosophy. Anyway, ten out of ten for The River Line for bringing intelligence to where I seldom hope to see it.