Festive occasion
TELEVISION STUART HOOD
Choosing an entry for an international tele- vision festival is a complicated business. Need- less to say the criteria applied are rarely pure. Thus certain political considerations have to be kept in mind. If the Soviet Union is going to be on the jury it is not likely to vote for a send-up of Kosygin. The French will turn down anything disrespectful to or critical of the General. (What would we say to an attack on the Royal Family?) It would be brave but unrewarding to present at the Alexandria Fes- tival a programme on the reclaMation of the Negev. If the emergent African nations are present they will not vote for—or, just as im- portant, lobby for—a documentary suggesting that the new states have made tragic mistakes. Religious sensibilities have to be considered. There is a kind of tact in these matters. When Japanese television first entered for the Italia Prize its offering was a documentary on an obscure Japanese sect of considerable antiquity which, while outwardly Buddhist, in fact prac-
tises in secret a curiously corrupt Christian ritual. It was sad that such ingenuity was not rewarded with a prize.
Then there are questions of fashion. What is the vogue this year in Europe? Is the hand- held camera on its way out? Is it film or tape?
Do they go for black humour or are they bent on harmless jollity with singing and dancing?
Is it to be spectaculars or little programmes exploiting studio limitations and looking as if they could be done by the smallest of tele- vision stations? Is the accent on visual effects or will the juries stand for a certain amount of dialogue? Will they understand it? There has to be a French text. How do you translate: You silly moo?
When it comes to judging the entries, the criteria are, once again, seldom pure. It would look bad if none of the East European coun- tries got anything. What about the Americans for once? We should encourage the smaller nations. It's a bad programme but at least they tried. The corridors are busy. Large television organisations have their client states and do not necessarily have to operate in the open. There are spoiling votes and deadlocks out of which some uninspired compromise emerges. Television festivals are like other festivals. Tele- vision is part of life, too.
These were some of the factors which the tux had to keep in mind—not necessarily in the forefront of it—when making its choice for this year's Montreux Festival where the prize Is for entertainment programmes. To judge by
the fact that its entry is Frost over England,
the corporation has decided that it can risk a good deal of verbal humour—e.g., Frost's news- paper cuttings and a punning comparison of Carnaby Street and Mincing Lane—provided that it is tempered with good visuals: the works fall out of Big Ben; politicians, in a brilliant film sequence, dance the frug or the shake or some similarly spastic dance. Above all they have decided that what will go down really well with the European judges—and if the programme wins—with European audiences is a self-deprecatory, tradition-scorning piece, which keeps well within good taste. It is 'satiri- cal' yet will not date. It is disrespectful but its targets are safe—the England of the British Travel Association. It is politically neutral, since both Labour and Conservatives are treated with even-handed injustice. It is pro- fessionally of high standard and is quite simply a very funny programme. It might stand a chance of winning.
When this occurred to me I had a very im- pure thought. Is it, I wonder, a good idea—at the moment when we are at least going through the motions of seeking to enter Europe—to present ourselves to the Continent as a nation which can't even put its back to the wall be- cause the wall won't be finished in time and in which one lot of politicians is as platitudin- ously effete as the other? I have my doubts: odd, inexplicable twinges of patriotism.
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