Television
Forsooth
Richard Ingrams
Spokesmen for London Weekend Television were quick, rather too quick perhaps, to deny suggestions that the suicide of their Programme Controller, Cyril Bennett, might be connected with the troubles of his company. No one, however, disputes the terrible pressures that men like Bennett work under in their efforts to provide more popular rubbish at the weekend than that put out by the BBC. Indeed, so concerned had LWT become that they had convened, shortly before Bennett's death. a special conference to discuss how they could combat the competition of the BBC.
One thing about all this that drives me to despair, if not to suicide, is the fact, constantly repeated in the press, that The Generation Game, broadcast on BBC 1 at 6.30 on Saturday evening, is more popular with the viewing public than any other single programme.. Either the statistic is wrong, which is unlikely, or it is right, in which case people like me who believe in the basic good sense and decency of the British people are deceiving ourselves and should be packing our bags and getting ready to emigrate to New Zealand.
Steeped in resolve and determination I braced myself to endure the nightmare last Saturday. First came good news. A grimacing blonde bombshell called Anthea Redfern, who it transpires has the doubtful distinction of being married to the compere of the Generation Game, Bruce Forsyth, appeared, for some reason in the company of antiqueexpert Arthur Negus, to announce that her husband was ill, too ill to appear. Hurrah! The first good news to be broadcast for many a long day! However, hopes were quickly dashed when the blonde announced that the BBC, in order not to disappoint viewers, were going to re-show an old programme in the series.
It would be impossible to convey to readers of the Spectator the full horror of
what followed. The idea of the Generation Game is that two members of a family—one old, one young—compete with similar combinations in a number of ludicrous games—
a sort of indoors It's a Knockout, in other words. Forsyth in the meantime, a cavorting grotesque by David Frost out of Frankie Howerd, with ogling eyes, gleaming dentures and flicking lizard-like tongue, capers about making coarse comments and gener ally insulting the competitors while a studio audience, hired perhaps from a neighbour ing lunatic asylum, howls and howls with laughter. At the end the teams are compensated for their public humiliation by being
given a number of highly desirable consumer durables of the type which will become more expensive as a result of the Chancellor's mini-budget.
I have thought long and hard, and earnestly questioned many people as to why this degrading hour-long charade should be the most popular television programme, but without receiving any enlightenment. It is a totally baffling phenemenon, like motorway madness. Perhaps if the question could be answered it would explain, better than any economist's thesis, the answer to what's wrong with Britain.
It is not often that one feels sorry for the royalty but I am bound to say I pitied the poor Queen Mother having to sit through two and a half solid hours of Royal Variety PerlOrmance on Monday. What purpose is served by this marathon Festival of Tat is hard to discern. Why. too, should the BBC feel obliged to show the whole thing from start to finish ? I switched on at half-time and saw a number of dusky ballet dancers going through a rather monotonous routine to the sound of muted percussion and flutes. No body said who they were or what they were up to. Then someone called Dawson Chance appeared carrying a huge toy kangaroo with which he practised the art of ventriloquism. He was followed by a curly-haired young Australian by the name of Wayne King who hammered out a Gershwin selection on the grand piano, occasionally glancing over his shoulder at the audience with a rather desperate leer.
Things livened up a little with the appearance of Mike Yarwood OBE. His script is far too benign for my taste but he is an excellent mimic with a good line in Frost and Wilson. But he takes off too many other comics.
Previous page
