Television
Factory-farm mini-star
Clive Gammon
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star was the somewhat tongue-in-cheek title Man Alive chose for its look, last week on BBC2, at the jungle world of the pre-adolescent singers who hope to follow in the lucrative footsteps of the Osmond kids. " Every little tyke wants to be a pop-star" someone observed sourly and in a rather horrible way you can see why. Man Alive, in spite of odd failures, does consistently hold a neutral-tinted mirror up to nature and manages to cast a cold eye, if you will forgive a desperate mixing of metaphors, on various phenomena without becoming shrilly over-committed. And so it
was last week, for the mini-stars and their parents were, though a barn-door target in a way, tough enough to make too overt an as' sault simply counter-productive.
All I can say is that I'm glad my mum wasn't like twelve-year-old Darren Burn's. "He was en couraged, not pushed," said that lady, recounting how he had started as a child model at two years old (earlier it had emerged that it was she who had suggested his new role as a surrograte Jimmy Osmond). Everywhere he went — on film at least — she was there, tapping her feet to the backing music in the recording studio, keeping an eye on the Radio Luxemburg disc jockey who was giving his all in promoting little Darren's new disc.
It seems hard to say hard things of a twelve-year-old, but the gruesome self-possession Darren showed in the company of adults was repellant as he held his glass chest-high at a press reception, saying things like " It's going to be more difficult getting to school in the centre of London" (given success, that is) and declaring patronisingly that " teachers are pretty sensible." He resembled a normal child of his age as a factory-farm chicken does a farmyard cockerel. A meal-ticket for media men or maybe even not that. Just a luncheon voucher, for his heavily-promoted record managed only fifty-eighth in the charts. " I'd hate him suddenly to be plunged from childhood into adulthood." said Mum, apparently in perfect sincerity.
It was difficult, as it so often is in this kind of programme, to tell exactly what some of the participants felt because of their impoverished diction and idiom, but the predatory nature of many of the prowlers in this world came through clear enough. Beyond the inscrutable windows of EMI, the largest recording company in the world, what odd creatures lurk. The bearded man, for instance, who was little Darren's tutor in the telling gesture, showing him how to cast down his head, all passion spent, and how essential it was that he should "keep smiling at all costs."
The full treatment at EMI was followed by a touch of cold reality as the cameras recorded a personal appearance at a cinema in Edmonton. I'd always, clearly
naively, believed that all teeny-boppers and weeny-boppers screamed in conditioned reflex at the sight of any pop star. Not so with poor Darren though. There was a notable lack of enthusiasm and only a small handful could summon up the energy to chase him a little way down the street. " If you throw enough crap against the wall, some of it will stick " is an elegant expression
said to be current amongst PR men in the entertainment world.
Alas for Darren, the EMI brand in his case seems to have lacked some important adhesive ingredient. So what happens to
him next?? At least, as Man Alive SalU ueaupan, ne won E. nave anY problems using the tube to get to school.
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