Television
All talk
Peter Levi
ometimes I listen dreamily to a chat Oshow, but it melts in the mind, leaving no after-taste. The ideal interviewer is Terry Wogan, and why not? He is just interesting enough to keep you listening, just amusing enough to keep you smiling, he creates just tension enough to keep your eyes open. If he could be bottled and marketed I would keep a supply. All the same I thought Princess Anne had his measure a few weeks ago.
Clive James came bouncing back into action on Saturday evening (The Late Clive James, Channel 4). His poor showing the week before must have been due to jet-lag. This time he produced Harold Evans and Michael Grade, both of whom seemed to be made of polystyrene. They gleamed and glittered and bounced just like Clive James. It was like a fight between ani- mated punch-balls; their jokes were as false as his, nobody's witticisms cut deep, wisdom was lacking. Just at the end, Michael Grade came out from inside his punch-ball, and showed quality and speed in about three sentences, which made the other two clowns look shabbier than before.
Bernard Levin on the Thursday (Ques- tion Time, BBC1) had more serious and more interesting guests. Clive James is too much in love with glamour. Levin had tired old horses with more to say about real issues: Lord Gowrie, Denis Healey, Laura Grimond, and a dud lady with an academic degree who dithered and perhaps lacked experience of television. Laura Grimond was splendid; she flung her intellectual mane about like a sea-horse, and every- thing she said tasted of salt. She was the
only person in any of these shows one would have liked to spend the rest of the evening with. Denis Healey was very lik- able, had a nice, jolly farmer's expression, made by far the funniest jokes, and lost every point to Lord Gowrie, who had done so much homework it was coming out of his ears.
Lord Gowrie was admirably unsmooth, in fact Denis Healey was smoother. But it is an alarming thought that Lord Gowrie is the nearest we can get to Malraux, though Mrs Thatcher would probably not have got on with Malraux or commanded his sup- port. Why is Lord Gowrie not given the opportunity for a full exposition of his arts policy on television? Not a confrontation, but a reasoned conversation. Television seems to have very little time for genuine, intelligent conversation. One would not willingly conduct a conversation in Wogan's teasing tones in real life. Bernard Levin shone by hardly opening his mouth, but he did manage to madden me by snorting an insult about Francis Bacon. I think he is closely related to Infuriated, Tunbridge Wells.
Sunday was curiously tranquil. Channel 4 showed Tosca from Verona, well sung but the screen is too small, and they rubbed our noses in the silliest aspect of Italian opera by translating the words in subtitles. It was followed by a programme perfect in all ways, Birds of Britain, star- ring the birds of a reed-bed, including bitterns and a marsh harrier. The best thing about this programme was the photo- graphy, by Michael Richards and Michael Potts. It is curious how well it could convey the tiny scale of some birds compared to others, and how much more closely the camera can observe than the human eye. The sound was fine too; I have not heard a bittern booming for years. One felt with the reed warblers more tha,n any other birds; they live in elegant nests tied up with cobwebs, hiding from cuckoos.
Later on, Channel 4 showed -Kiium the Elephant Cave, a programme less per- fect in a way, but even more thrilling, more engaging to the senses and the imagina- tion, more mysterious. It was about a high mountain cave on the edge of the Rift Valley, worked for salt at night by a secret herd of elephants. This was a repeat, and I hope it recurs regularly. Anything about elephants is attractive, I even watched a children's adventure serial about a circus, Travellers by Night (ITV), to catch a
glimpse of an elephant. The character- acting was brilliant and admirably clear, but the elephant just looked mournfully at the world. Still, this was only episode one, and I recommend it.
ITV celebrated the Queen's birthday with Elizabeth R, which apart from pom-
pous music and inflated sentiment was interesting and moving. One ended up liking the Queen all the more because her privacy so utterly escaped the cameras. No one can have been more stared at, yet no one seems so uninvaded. As she said, she has to be seen to be believed.
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