Music
Ordeal by camera
Peter Phillips
Barring what we in England call force majeure, in this case some overriding poli- tical event, a programme about music on another channel at the same time or a lucrative boxing contract, I shall be given the opportunity to speak to the nation by agency of the electric television on 30 December. The speaking will form part of a South Bank Show documentary on the Tallis Scholars.
What I had intended to do, before I was floored by the physical presence of the cameras, was to present myself as a cross between my two screen heroes, Kenneth Clark and Richie Benaud. They are my heroes not least because they are the only two presenters I have seen in action in recent years, having renounced ownership of the dreaded box, imposing on relatives merely during the cricket season or when too ill to do anything other than watch hours of video-taped Civilisation. I had intended to fix the camera with a beady eye, a half-smile burnt on to my lips, and speak in those measured paragraphs during which Clark somehow managed to marry generalisations to the dispensation of ge- nuinely challenging material.
The plan was overthrown on the first day of filming, when I was told that I was never to look at the camera, but to deliver statements ad lib to an interviewer whose presence was not to be apparent, i.e. I had to answer a question without acknowledg- ing the question or the questioner. This is a peculiarly modern form of torture. It means that not only is the interviewee deprived of the support of the interviewer's reaction to his statements, which are un- scripted for spontaneity, but he has to look alive and enthusiastic on the fifth take. One of the lighting men told me that Clark similarly had spoken entirely from mem- ory, never losing the thread of an argument immeasurably more intricate than mine. The requirement is to make the fifth attempt as spontaneous as the first, of course; but since one can never say, 'Well, yeah, that's right', or 'You don't say: I would never have believed her capable of it', the actual content of the reply has to be carefully considered. One may need five takes to capture the spontaneity which was impossible on the first.
This is just an example of what everyone knows about television: that nothing on it can ever be completely spontaneous, and in the attempt to make it so something of the subtlety of the natural circumstance is lost. It is this process which leads those presenters who seem most relaxed on film to become increasingly like cardboard cut- outs, as this make-believe world becomes for them the ordinary world. We tried to film the process by which my group re- hearses a piece of music from scratch. No one was happy that it should be the very first time that we sang it which was filmed, in case we let ourselves down; and similarly with the discussion which followed be- tween the singers and myself, I had to have some idea in advance of what to say, for fear that I should mumble or say nothing of interest to the outside world. In the event the whole scene was cut anyway.
I end on a sourer note. Cultural prog- rammes which tell the history of things rely on having access to the buildings which help to illustrate the story in question. By and large, as the viewer will see, the curators of these buildings were most helpful. However, with one or two of the larger colleges at Oxford the request to film on their premises was treated with a casualness which seemed very much like disdain. I can sympathise with a desire to keep television cameras out of one's chapel every day of the week, though I hope I would have the courtesy to reply to the initial enquiry; but it was revealing that the organist of perhaps the most famous of these colleges in refusing to support LWT's application suggested that his own choir should make the programme. This was clearly opportunism under cover of old- fashioned arrogance. No wonder the Americans find cause to despise us.
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