Television
Forcing a Laugh
By CLIFFORD HANLEY And yet, when you think of it, it isn't easy to tell a joke. An audience can hear, or see, a grim tale of jealousy and madness and death, and even if it isn't very good, the audience can at least look impressed and then—quite deliberately, as an act of will—applaud. If a joke doesn't work. however, it doesn't matter how much the audience wants to meet the writer halfway. It
can't laugh by an act of will. It can only offer a forced titter which is more deadly than silence.
Granada has obviously invested a lot of hope in The Bulldog Breed, which aims to provoke big helpless laughs. The first episode, in fact, had several genuine hoots, and in addition, a pleas- antly fresh atmosphere. But last week's instalment had become slightly frantic; the story line kept petering out and being revived by synthetic pep pills, and instead of ending, just petering out again. Nevertheless, I trust Granada will stick by the ship. Donald Churchill as the feckless hero Tom Bowler is immensely likeable and he has the quick sensitivity for strong comic acting. We need comedy on television, and my money is still on this series.
Then we had Gwyn Thomas's wild Welsh romp, The Slip, on Sunday night. Here again, I was more than halfway to meeting the author before the show started. 1 was saddened to find that I had to force the titters a little. The play was by no means a failure. Thomas has a more destructive grip of the English language than any contemporary writer except S. J. Perelman, and this in itself is unfailingly rewarding. But per- haps, like Perelman and Ogden Nash, he comes out best from the density and pace of the printed page. The visual quality of the production was slow and claustrophobic, and never quite developed the simple gusto of the Gwyn Thomas personality.
Political party conferences. I am convinced, should be televised to the maximum. Nothing but television can reveal the thundering flimsiness demonstrated last week by some of the Tory brass—or the intelligence and maturity of some others, I admit. Granada ran extensive live coverage of the show. This was not seen in London; or in Glasgow, or in several other regions. The operations of the network remain a bafflement.
Workaday adults who feel deprived because they miss the excellent daytime schools pro- grammes could do worse than catch Sir Lawrence
Bragg early on Monday evenings (BBC) on The Nature of Things. His demonstrations of funda-
mental electricity are done with beautiful non- TV-personality authority. are clearly designed for ordinary inquisitive schoolchildren and are therefore precisely on my level. I'm learning something. I swear it.
`Make yourself a real mess, and we'll go out.'
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