Television
Uninformative
Richard Ingram
The BBC's Everyman programme has no precise brief. It is supposed to be a God-slot but such is the nature of people's attitude to religion nowadays, that a religious programme is given a roving brief with the right to devote time to almost any subject it likes. So it was not surprising to find Mr Peter France on Sunday raking over the ashes of the now notorious Deptford fire in which 13 young blacks were burned to death. As a lengthy police investigation and the farcical inquest presided over by Dr Davies have failed to throw any light on what caused the fire it was unlikely that Mr France would provide any answers. Nor did he. But thee it was not his object. Apart from interviewing relatives of those who had died, his airil seemed to be to provide a platform for a number of rather dubious 'spokesmen for the West Indian Community' to let off steam. There was the now notorious Darcus Howe, who perhaps thought he would get a better hearing if he wore a black T-shirt with a white collar that made him look at first sight like a priest. There was Canon Wilfred Wood from Catford and a woman called Sybil Phoenix, MBE, who runs a youth club for blacks only in Brixton. I find it hard to believe that these Dickensian characters are the best people that the 'Black Community can come up with in the way of 'spok men'. But then perhaps when you think I1! terms of 'communities' and 'spokesmen this is what you get. Howe, a scarcely articulate Marxist, said that the blacks had been walking the streets in fear and trembling knowing that something like the Deptford fire was going to happen. Canon Wood said, 'Black people have died for no other reason than that they were black', while Ms Phoenix, MBE, said that black people were going to fight for their lives and that as far as they were concerned 'the way of the gun' could well turn out to be the way of the cross'. Mr France, who throughout affected a hushed voice and wrinkled his features with suitable concern, at no point took issue with any of this humbug, nor, more seriously, did he once suggest that the fire was most probably caused by an accident. 'Someone is to blame', said one parent. Mr France nodded understandingly. The possibility that the atmosphere in Deptford is such that people can easily be convinced that it was arson is another question but Mr France did not address himself to that. He seemed to accept the version of the black spokesman without any major misgivings. In the circumstances it is hard to think of anything more reprehensible. Unfortunately we have come to expect from Everyman, as from any number of people in the field of religious affairs, a regrettable tendency to fellow-travel with Marxists, professional Gays and other Opportunists. When it is interviews allowing men like Darcus Howe to make propaganda, it is not only dishonest but dangerous, as they only create more prejudice by antagonising white viewers whose tendency would Otherwise be to sympathise with the blacks. Besides which, it is an easy way out. Anyone can rustle up a few spokesmen and allow them to sound off.To try to establish the truth needs a little more effort. It is time for Peter France to be replaced. Everybody knows who Bernard Levin is but I should think the name of Peter Alliss is not one that is much bandied about among the cognoscenti. Yet there is no doubt as to who is the better interviewer. For a start Alliss, whose programme directly preceded Levin's on Saturday, get his victims out onto the golf course, unlike Levin, who interviewed Anthony Burgess in what looked like the TV lounge at the Ritz. The golf course background makes for a good programme though naturally rather limits the choice of interviewee. Ludovic Kennedy to my untutored eye looked as if he was quite a dab hand with mashie and niblick, even if he seemed, after all that sitting around in the studio listening to the Did You See. .? bores, a trifle short of wind. Asked if there was anything he would like if money was no object he replied unhesitatingly — a yacht. By a paranormal coincidence Anthony Burgess when asked about what he did in his spare time said he didn't play golf and he didn't shop around for yachts. With a cigarette carefully wedged between his third and fourth fingers and his hair combed across his forehead to conceal baldness, he came over as a rather pompous and humourless man. Like the earlier interview with John Osborne this programme was strangely uninformative.
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