Television
Hit and miss
Alexander Chancellor
Cpitting Image (ITV, Sundays), the satir- ical puppet show, is a terrifically hit- and-miss affair. Much of it is either incom- prehensible or unfunny or both. But its treatment of the Prince and Princess of Wales is touched with genius. The Princess is portrayed as the ultimate good-natured Sloane Ranger; the Prince as a secret eccentric who is quietly going off his rocker. Last Sunday they were shown dining together, waited upon by an old flunkey in a powdered wig mysteriously called Muriel. The Prince, who has given up meat, is served with a plate of veget- ables; but when he prepares to eat them, they come to life and plead with him for mercy. He alone sees them with little human faces. To Princess Diana they just look like vegetables. She questions him concernedly about his distracted look but he does not reveal what is the matter. As a Fluck and Law puppet, Princess Diana is extremely plain and wears spectacles. I cannot understand why this is so clever, but it is. At the end of the programme, Prince Charles appears as a half-naked fakir with crossed legs. This is Private Eye humour at its best, successfully transferred to the television screen.
Also on Sunday, Ian Botham was the subject of Favourite Things (BBC2), Roy Plomley's television version of Desert Is- land Discs in which the discs are replaced by bits of film illustrating the things that are favoured. Among Mr Botham's `favourite things' is the Queen, so we saw them together a couple of times. His infatuation with the Queen is fuelled by admiration for the way in which she copes with the constant glare of publicity. Ex- posed to similar pressures himself, Mr Botham copes rather less well. Now he cannot even bring himself to read the newspapers. Favourite Things is quite an entertaining series, but I can't help feeling Mr Plomley would have done better to stick with the radio. The truth is that he has a fine if rather unctuous voice, but looks awful.
As an alternative to Mr Plomley on Sundays you can watch Magnus Magnus- son on Mastermind (BBC1). There is not much to be said about Mastermind that hasn't been said before, its melodramatic format never changes. There is, however, some popular pressure for change. I saw a man on the television news the other day arguing that the programme should not
always take place in learned institutions but should sometimes be recorded in pulls or clubs. His curious complaint was that working people did not get a chance to set Magnus Magnusson. Among last Sunday's Mastermind contestants was a gentleman called Clive Evans who was described simply as 'Unemployed'. I felt it must be significant in some way that this descdr tion was used. Perhaps it appeared to confer dignity on the condition of unem- ployment, making it seem no worse than being a schoolmaster or civil servant. Did You See . . ? (BBC2) last Sunday got round to discussing Wogan's new thrice-weekly chat show (Wogan, BBC1), with Clive James as its main reviewer. The difficulty with Clive James is that he has a reputation for wit to keep up, so everY sentence he utters is designed to sparkle. This is a bit tiring for the viewer who may find it difficult to follow the overall argu- ment, if there is one. Mr James's line on, Wogan was that there was not enough of Terry himself on the programme. It ' Wogan's use of the English language which Mr James particularly admires and feels should be more widely deployed to gener- ally educative effect. Wogan is certainlY 3 good talker, but this sounded like a lot of nonsense to me.
Also discussed on Did You See . • • was Granada's series Television. Las' Tuesday's sixth episode in the series was the first I had watched. it was called 'The Story Machine' and was about the develop' ment of dramatised serials and soap oper- as. If this episode was typical, I do not think the series can be very exciting. Some of the clips were entertaining, but they were strung together in rather a haphazard way with an unrevealing commentary. Late Starter, a new BBC1 drama series which started last week, stars the ubi- quitous Peter Barkworth as a retiring university English professor whose wife runs away after spending everything he owns, and more, on her secret gambling' The first episode ended with the professor going to London in search of work and nevi life. Among the crosses which he has to bear are two grown-up children more odious than either he or the viewers deserve. But the story so far is rather gripping. Finally, on Tuesday there was Nigel Lawson's budget. So long as television feels obliged to cover budgets live, the pressure for permission to televise the House of Commons is bound to continue. For if you cannot show the Chancellor on the screen, what on earth can you show' The answer, for ITV at any rate, was to show Big Ben looking forlorn in scaffold- ing. These were clearly live pictures, be- cause the clock was telling the right time, but otherwise nothing moved. Unable to offer anything else of any visual interest, ITV constantly interrupted the Chancel- lor's speech with studio comment ano. debate. Most people, I am sure, would much rather hear the speech in full and the discussion of it afterwards.
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