Television
Unfair to mums
Wendy Cope
Aweek ago on Wednesday the early evening edition of ITN News included an item about the Hong Kong stockmarket. In Hong Kong, according to this report, 'even the mums have a flutter'. Amazing. You wouldn't expect a mum to be able to understand share dealing or run a country or anything like that, would you? This kind of patronising comment is, to my mind, completely British Telecom. Out of order, that is — joke courtesy of Lenny Henry.
The new series of The Lenny Henry Show (BBC 1) looks as if it will be funnier than the average 'comedy' programme, which isn't saying much, of course. I've been impressed by this performer since first seeing him in New Faces in the days when there was no need to switch on at all — must have been depressed at the time. Anyway, Lenny Henry won and since then has made a lot of television programmes, most of them consisting of sketches. This time around, a character from some of the sketches, Delbert Wilkins, has become the central figure in a situation comedy. Del- bert, a flash, over-confident disc jockey and self-appointed fashion expert, is a worthwhile creation. The problem is that sitcoms have to have plots and the plots are usually irritating.
The real-life plot of the first two epi- sodes of The Duty Men (BBC 2) was extremely hard to follow. Fortunately I had already read this story of customs officers versus drug smugglers in the Sun- day Times, where it was told much better. However, the unhelpful editing didn't pre- vent The Duty Men from being riveting to watch. There was videotape of suspects queueing up to go through passport con- trol, collecting their cocaine-filled suitcases from the baggage carousel, and chatting nervously with customs officers as they opened them up. You can't get that from a magazine article.
There is something about the title of this programme that should have struck me immediately but didn't, in fact, occur to me until I had been watching for about a quarter of an hour. This looks like an interesting job, I thought idly. I wonder if I could do it. No, it looks as if you have to be a man. Hang on. Why do you have to be a man? Where are the women customs and excise officers? Send for the Equal Oppor- tunities Commission. Why isn't this prog- ramme called The Duty People? Eventual- ly a couple of young women did appear, in minor roles. One of them was seen listen- ing to her boss making a speech. Her face was pink and it wore the expression you often see on the faces of women who are listening to self-important men take ten minutes to say what could be said in 30 seconds. Since this column seems to have got itself into a feminist mood, I will add a telling little excerpt from an interview with a suspect.
`Did you share that apartment with anyone?' asked the investigator.
`No, not really. Just girls, that's all.' This was treated as a perfectly reasonable answer.
Spitting Image (ITV) is back and main- taining approximately the same standard as before, with several sketches funny enough to evoke laughter rather than a smile. My favourite was the one in which cabinet ministers made smutty remarks and snig- gered as Cecil Parkinson took his seat at the table. However, there were some things in the programme that I considered British Telecom. The sketch about the childlessness of the Duke and Duchess of York was one. And I am always disturbed by this programme's exceptionally cruel treatment of David Steel.
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