Television
In the dark
Richard Ingrams
Iris Murdoch's novel The Bell, adapted for BBC 2 by Reg Gadney, began in a very similar way to the ill-fated Borgias with a little strip show. It didn't seem to have anything to do with the story and I'm sure its purpose, as with the Borgias, was to try to ensnare the audience which might otherwise think that what was on offer was a highbrow Third Programme type of stunt. Later in the programme there was another strip, not to mention a Brideshead- style male bum, all of which were enough to put me off the serial. We have it on the authority of the former Jesuit priest Peter Levi (Spectator, 16 January) that 'the endless originality and self-renewal and the extraordinary force of life in Iris Murdoch's novels, have been a principle element in the reading habits of our generation. They have been our moral entertainment for half a lifetime.' Well, you could have fooled me, after watching Episode One of The Bell though whether this was the fault of Miss Murdoch or of Mr Gadney I cannot be cer- tain. Nothing was done to establish characters, time or place. After a shot of a steam train 1 thought for a long time that we were seeing a flashback, because there was nothing beforehand to suggest that the story was set in the age of steam. We were then introduced to a motley collection of people in a large country house belonging to some sort of religious community — an Anglican priest, a bossy middle-aged woman, assorted pipe-smoking men in car- digans including a homosexualist alcoholic (or alcoholic homosexualist whichever the case may be). Little or no attempt was made to explain who these people were or what they were doing stuck away in such an unreal setting. I have seldom seen such a messy and ill-thought-out adaptation. It made Fame is the Spur (BBC 1), by a better storyteller than Miss Murdoch, Howard Spring, look positively inspired; and this was not marred by any bumshots.
The irresponsibility of Roger Graef's Police (BBC 1) has been more evident than ever in the last two episodes, both of which have been mere essays in sensationalism. One featured embarrassing scenes of a detective breaking down in tears when told that he was to be posted back onto the beat, the second a rape victim being aggressively interrogated by three policemen and a policewoman. The purpose of journalism in print or on television ought to be in un- covering some kind of truth, but Mr Graef's undigested slices of film leave one always in the dark. In both instances the police seemed to know more than the viewer, in the rape case there were ap- parently good grounds for doubting the woman's story but these were never ex- plained, with the result that the police were made to look brutal and uncaring. There was a lot of talk afterwards about whether a woman should be subjected to such unplea- sant treatment by policemen. No one ques- tioned whether it is right to show this type of thing on TV. Does it advance the cause of Women's Rights, or merely, as I tend to think, appeal to the voyeur in all of us?
I rather expected to be bored by Welsh actor Kenneth Griffith and his 90-minute tribute to Tom Paine, The Most Valuable Englishman Ever(BBC 2), but in the event I watched it all. It is a difficult task to do a telly-biography of someone like Paine who left few visible traces of himself — only one portrait as far as I know, and even his bones disappeared after Cobbett dug them up and took them back to England. Griffith managed it by impersonating the different characters with minimal changes in posture and dress. he was filmed throughout 'on location' but it was a minor failure of the programme that it did not always make clear exactly where he was. Paine may not have been the most valuable Englishman ever but I shouldn't think anyone lived such an exciting life as he did. He inspired the American and the French revolutions and like all those who set out to benefit humanity was rewarded with imprisonment and insults, eventually dying in obscurity and neglect. It was a moving story told with imagination — a minor tour de force.
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