What's My Line ?
SIR,—May 1 give my own reaction to Miss Laski's interesting article ? I shall not emulate her boldness in generalisation. How can she know the typical reaction of the viewer—if indeed there is one ? In the interests of brevity, I shall mention only my points of disagreement.
1. It never occurred to me to regard the members of the panel as experts. They are clearly (in this context) just intelligent men and women. I am sure many ordinary viewers, like myself, felt they could have done as well or as badly. An expert panel would, I imagine, have to consist wholly of experienced barristers, which heaven forbid.
2. My sympathies were always with the panel. This, surely, is psychologically inevitable. One cannot but sympathise with those who are attempting a difficult job. The other side had no difficulty.
3. There is one surprising omission in Miss Laski's analysis. She never mentions the pleasure of watching the minds of the panel at work. I liked the occasional inspired queries, which seemed to me to verge sometimes on the telepathic, but I enjoyed most the methodical approach by elimination, the dovetailing and building up of meagre data, the effort to gain as much as possible from noting closely the appearance, facial expression and general response of the challenger.
May I add two small criticisms of the conduct of the programme ?
1. Many of the questions asked could not be answered by a cate- gorical yes or no. The attempt to give such an answer was too often misleading. Why not say, " No answer in categorical terms is possible," and leave it at that ?
2. Some of the occupations were so obscure as to be practically impossible to elicit. Personally I derive a very limited entertainment from watching people attempting an intrinsically hopeless task. It may be funny once but stales with repetition.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Previous page
