Television
Nice bits of fluff
Martyn Harris
After three months in the job it seems presumptuous to offer a balanced review of last year's television, so I shall only men- tion what I enjoyed, which was far more than I expected: Telly Addicts, Beadle's About, Blind Date, Every Second Counts, Challenge Anneka. After years of a whole- some diet of documentary, drama and current affairs, becoming a television critic was like getting a note from the doctor to eat chocolates and read pornography.
To take Jeremy Beadle, for instance: among my critical colleagues Beadle's Ab- out (LWT) is a knee-jerk term for awful- ness, like Des O'Connor, but I can't for the life of me see why. It is only Candid Camera with better jokes and a bigger budget, and if they can't see that Beadle is a screaming self-parodist they deserve to have their pencils taken away.
I regard most early evening television as married an air hostess. l can tell you, the charm and graciously efficient service soon went to pot.' something to do with my brain when I don't want to think with it, and the programmes on it are efficiently designed to that end. With work finished and a gin and tonic to hand I can even find myself shouting out the answers to Telly Addicts. Chewing gum for the eyes was the old definition, but that seems too energetic, and I think of it more as an insulating hoover-fluff for the aching and empty skull.
The programme I watched most consis- tently last year was David Attenborough's Trials of Life, which was criticised for being no more than a lot of amazing pictures joined end to end, and it was true that it contained no argument. Attenbor- ough expounded his arguments, which are Darwinian, in his earlier series, Life on Earth, and once you accept Darwin there is no real argument, only observation.
Other bouquets go to The Media Show (Channel 4) for the pleasure of watching the excellent and toothsome Emma Freud; Harry Enfield's Television Programme (BBC 2) for its accuracy and cruelty; Troubleshooter (BBC 2) for John Harvey Jones's impression of a field howitzer; House of Cards (BBC 1) for Ian Richard- son's eyelids; The Green Man (BBC 1) for Albert Finney's corsetry; Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (BBC 2) for its capacity to irritate; and finally, Sex Talk (Channel 4) as a cure for insomnia — even embarrass- ment has its pleasures.
Up to the moment again, and out of sheer stupidity I watched Thirty Years of the Royal Variety Show (BBC 1, 8.15 p.m., Saturday). In this a faded galaxy of frantic prefixes: 'the unique' Billy Dainty, 'the immortal' Josephine Baker, 'the multi- talented' Sammy Davis, 'the much-missed' Dustin Gee and 'pop Peter Pan' Cliff Richard were oleaginously introduced by grinning golfer Bruce Forsyth. Still it was good to see 'the great old institution' the Crazy Gang again, if only to be reminded that they were never crazy, and not funny in the least.
It is an item of televisual toffee to pay homage to music hall tradition, just as it is compulsory among Hollywood stars to pretend they would rather be doing Shakespeare. This latter point was deftly made by Nigel Planer, alias Nicholas Craig, in his Interview Master Class (BBC 2, 3.45 p.m., Friday) — an exposition of chat-show technique for the aspiring thes- pian. We saw Anthony Andrews saying 'for me' (essential to demonstrate modesty and vulnerability); Kate O'Mara saying how much she really preferred England to California; Julie Walters doing the inevit- able American accent and John Gordon Sinclair doing the equally inevitable Richard III impression. It was every inane theatrical tic in the book, and a barn-door- sized target, except that nobody but Planer ever noticed it before. Here was a 25-minute hoovering job that swept right through the fluff.
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