The Lively Arts
IT seems incredible that the BBC has waited so long to present a regular magazine feature on the arts. Even now the Corporation seems to be shy of associating this dubious four-letter word with the new programme. Monitor is intro- duced as 'a look every fortnight at what's happening in theatre, films, books, paint- ing, sculpture, music, architecture.' The first pro- gramme was a near-success. 1 had been intending to say here for some time that what is chiefly wrong with television is the vision; that the pic- tures on our tiny. inefficient screens are so poor that they should be regarded merely as a visual aid to the spoken word. I wanted to clinch the point by suggesting that television could never hold an audience with a silent film. Then along came John Schlesinger to start Monitor off with filmed shots of Harringay Circus that required no descriptive words to grip the viewer. Could we have more of such experiments, please? Peter Brook then gave a fascinating demonstration and explanation of musique concrete. The interview with Amis was poor, chiefly because the inter- viewer was surly and not very knowledgeable about Amis's work. Moreover, he had such a strong resemblance to Amis that it was disconcert- ingly like Tweedle Dum interviewing Tweedle Dee. Was this one of Huw Wheldon's Welsh jokes? Alan Brien's interviews with people reeling from the theatre after suffering Cat on a Hot Tin Roof came off splendidly; but not the attempt to discuss the play seriously.
The second issue of Monitor a fortnight later was less distinguished. I think Mr. Wheldon was trying to suggest that something in Sagan's ballet moves French youth in the way in which Osborne's plays move English youth. I don't believe it, but I'd like to hear it argued. Unfortunately, we never found out what Sagan's idea is or why it is so powerful. This programnie suffers chiefly from too many dull people interviewing too many dull people, though I except Milton Shulman from this charge. He interviewed Tynan, Wain, Wil- son, Holroyd and Hopkins forthrightly and fairly; but I'm worried about the ethics of cutting filmed interviews so that the answers to a similar question put to several people are given consecu- tively. Did the victims know that these answers would be given out of context? If so, they were foolish to consent to this smart-aleckry.
The report on Sam Wanamaker's Liverpool theatre experiment by Alan Brien was too compli- cated. The brief seemed to be : find out what the man in the street and his business rivals think of Wanamaker's work, which, incidentally, you will get him rapturously to describe. But exactly what Wanamaker is doing, what plays, films and con- certs he has presented, and how they fared, we were not told. Simplicity and directness are every- thing in television. Lime Grove people should play back M urrow's superb interview with Mr. Truman in slow motion until they have learned that lesson.
ATV's cultural answer to Monitor was shown on the Sunday between. A flop, I am afraid—but not an unpromising one. At least ATV are not afraid of the word. The series is called Is Art Necessary? and the first programme was an attempt to pin down the meaning that the word 'beauty' has for us in 1958. This was done chiefly by examining the line and mass of selectively bred and wild animals. The animal judges were most interesting, the xsthetes ineffective. Both Sir Ken- neth Clark and William Clark, his accomplished anchor man, seemed to be discussing rather simple ideas in rather difficult language. In order to allow Sir Kenneth C. to speak his final piece, William C. had to cut off Bernard Leach in mid-word. I hope our most distinguished potter will not be discouraged by this trahison des Clarks. I should add that there were far too many people in this half-hour programme and that somebody should find out from those on the other channel who did Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? how to make pots and other small objects look interesting on the screen.
The BBC's World Theatre Series has its ups and downs. Heartbreak House was enthralling until the last act, which presented a problem that nobody has yet solved'on television. What do you do when you have more than six characters in search of a‘
camera? How do you show the speaker and those spoken to in sufficient detail? Even on the stage, where the eye can keep all the players in focus, this scene is not easy to manage.
I found The Government Inspector mildly enjoyable. The translation was free and it spoke easily. Nevertheless, it was rather commonplace so that all the fun had to come from situations and the characters; and these are rather too simple and obvious for us today. Fortunately the play was brief and Hancock's hour and a quarter went swiftly. Last Sunday's play The Judge, a translation from the Danish, never, I thought, rcse much above melodrama. I wonder how much had been cut out of the original version. It was un- suitable for this series.
I asked people who had found an unpunishing way of rationing television for under-fourteens during school term to let me know the secret so that I could pass it on. Several mothers have written to me to say that they have no trouble at all. But they were all mothers of sizeable families of a fairly narrow age range living in the country. One father of four claims to have found the ideal solution. They do not own a television but hire one for each holiday. This makes television into the treat it should be, rather than common daily fare. My own method, which works pretty well with an ex-addict, is to offer the child five hours of television a week and encourage her to select her items in advance and make a timetable for the coming week.
JOHN COWBURN
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