Television
Cults
Richard Ingrams
I think I may be nearing the end of my tether as a television critic. I find I am beginning to shout insults at people on the screen in a very loud voice and this behaviour worries me. I decided on Sunday that what really annoys one about most television is that it is quite unnecessarily boring. The thought was inspired by a World About Us film devoted to the activities of a bearded man who spends most of his time taking photographs of flies and moths as they whizz through the air. From a technical point of view such photographic feats may be fascinating enough but considering the matter from the ordinary man's point of view it is hard to see why a long television programme should be devoted to a man who takes photographs of flies and moths.
The answer I suppose lies in the cult of nature. How often one hears people saying: 'Of course I hardly ever watch television but there are one or two frightfully good things now and then like those marvellous nature programmes. Did you see that absolutely riveting film last week about hedgehogs?' If the man with the beard photographed High Speed Trains, say, hurtling down the track, I doubt if he would get on the air but because his subject matter is flies, he gets treated differently and we are all supposed to bring in the kiddies and pretend to be fascinated by the wonders of mother nature, stifling thoughts that flies are in reality pretty boring little creatures and men with beards who photograph them not much better.
Other programmes, one feels, could be interesting but aren't. I watched Tales from India (BBC2) in which old soldiers recalled their experiences in the service of the Raj.
But except when one old boy described the big black-bearded Pathans, so frightening 'you wanted to run to the nearest toilet' the programme never came alive because the men chosen weren't quite interesting enough. Very few people can remember anything at all and fewer still can describe what they remember in a vivid way.
The London Programme (LWT) examined the question of why West Indian
children do so badly in our schools. Again it was an interesting subject, but the reporter John Shirley bored us into the ground with facts and statistics. There was also a quite gratuitous American bore called Prof Raymond Giles who spoke of the need for schools to foster 'a positive idea of black ness'. God help us all! Where do they get them from? Meanwhile on the BBC Nor man St JohnStevas was talking about religious education. Why couldn't they get someone else for a change?
The Chairman of Thames Television is someone who in my ideal society would be taken out one morning and shot by a firing squad. He is a boring looking man with glasses called Howard Thomas and he was to be seen on his own channel on Monday receiving an award from the Writers Guild of Great Britain for 'outstanding services to television'. The commemorative piece of perspex was pressed into his hands at the Dorchester by Baron Willis of Chislehurst (Ted Willis for short) who described him as 'one of the finest men I've ever met.' These award-giving occasions are always instruc tive from my point of view as I find I have never heard of any of the programmes that win prizes, let alone seen them. What about Caledonian Cascade, Oy Vay Maria, The
Paper Lads, You're Only Young Twice, Have a Harry Christmas, or I'm Bob He's Dkkie? I feel the time has probably come for me to give way to someone who wpuld
be able at least to locate such prograrnmes and possibly even watch them instead of just sitting there like me shouting impotently at Norman St JohnStevas and bearded well-intentioned moth-. photographers.
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