Television
Strings to the Loot
By CLIFFORD HANLEY
In the first, place, there isn't much doctrinal validity in commercial television in its present form. Mr. Thomson has attacked the Pilkington plan as Socialistic, but in fact, ITV is by no means true-blue Conservative in its structure. It isn't Socialism, because it's operated for private profit. But it isn't free enterprise either, because if you're not chosen, you're out. No matter how brilliant an entrepreneur you may be, you can't get into the game. The doctrinal defenders of present-day commercial television seem to me like people who are all for the good old jungle of open competition while they're getting ahead, but who want everything stopped and stabilised, and an end to wasteful competition, as soon as they're in. I don't blame them, but I don't have to agree with them.
The Pilkington plan, however, could create 'And you call yourself an action painter.'
downright murderous areas of competition, which nobody has yet envisaged. It suggests that in a service operated by the ITA the regional contractors would simply contribute programmes, and be paid for them. But presumably the new kind of ITA would also buy American canned programmes, and British canned series like Robin flood. In these circumstances, it would be difficult to exclude other independent producers offering reasonable live programmes too. The regional monopoly given to the contractors would be a precarious thing indeed, and very hard to justify. Anybody who could raise the money to hire some equipment and hods for a week or two could try to break into the act, and a perfectly horrifying, non-monopolistic jungle would sprout, much as it has always done in the theatre and the movies.
In the meantime, a post-Pilkington reaction seemed to have settled drably on ,the screen during the past week. I have often suspected that variety simply didn't work on television, and although this suspicion has been -modified now and then, it was brutally enforced by the truly awful Bernard Delfont show (ITV). a display of apathy that surely must indicate a healthy contempt for the customers. The Andromeda nonsense grew more obscure, and The Big Pull, which earlier showed hopes of developing, ended as a bit of a mess in which the hero was converted into an interplanetary zombie without having become a complete human being first.
Discussion programmes on both channels will really have to throw off the dread infection of cosiness. Watching the BBC's Gallery on the subject of the Cabinet changes, you can't help.' being impressed by the sheer knowingness of the speakers, but if you feel as I do that the Cabinet changes are themselves fairly meaning' less, you must feel that the commentators 10', have joined in the fascinating, irrelevant game of Pick Your Power Corridor, and are drifting steadily away from Us. It's My Opinion is try- ing to get right down to the leedle people, with chairman David Dimbleby actually sitting in the audience, but the first effort was a cotufY, half-pressure affair, neither funny enough nor bitter enough. On ITV, Lord Fisher turned up on Sunday afternoon answering questions from a layman and an Anglican monk, for an earnest, friendly, woolly half-hour which to e non-communicant said nothing whatever. The performers appeared to be enjoying themselves, but then, I didn't buy my set to watch other people enjoying themselves.
I did enjoy myself during The HT rong Bark (BBC), all about a working chap with a bitchy wife and a warm, vulnerable girl friend The new wave of writers is leaning heavily' Cockney prole material, but this is okay with Me' Some of the local colour bits—pub conversac-c tions, comic-relief caff-owner—were rather awkwardly on to the plot; and there were •• some puzzling jolts in the mechanics of the Otece. But the heart of the play was sound, the chare„ ters and the conflict were hurtfully credible` i. Patricia Haines as the doomed girl friend wascic cious; her winsome sexuality came right throng the Perspex. Plenty of enjoyment for this viewer too in the Saturday night Twist-fests WO'
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