Television
Wholemeal
Richard Ingrams
Late on a Sunday night after an exhausting day trying belatedly to tidy up the marrow patch before the advent of winter is no time to come to grips with the New Spiritual Awakening or to respond to the need to re-direct my energies. Yet this was the mes sage of a tall white-haired old baronet, Sir George Trevelyan (a distant relative of the historian), appearing on Everyman (BBC 1). Sir George's opinions were labelled in advance 'a personal view' which, as I have noted recently, is always a good sign, indi cating that the BBC regards the person concerned as some kind of lunatic or subversive, and that he should be welcomed by the view er as at least a Non-Consensus Person. In the circumstances I was therefore prepared to lend an attentive ear to the elderly aristocrat, who had been prevailed upon to give a conducted tour of the recent Festival of Mind and Body at Olympia, as well 'as to recite his favourite lines from Wordsworth which he did to great effect.
Many visitors including our own resident sage Mr Christopher Booker have hailed the Festival, which gathers together under one large roof such phenomena as wholemeal bread, Yoga, Morris dancing, Glastonbury, faith-healing et al, as a promising sign of some kind of new spiritual awareness amongst young people. To my eyes there is a rather old-fashioned air about the whole caper. One of the most depressing aspects of the modern world is the way in which sincere people continue to advocate Marxism long after every single experiment on Marxist lines had ended in disaster. I feel the same about Yoga and wholemeal bread. There is an Edwardian look about it all, which was what made the distinguished if absurd figure of Sir George the ideal choice as our guide.
Another thing which doesn't work, as I have already observed in this column, is the bald re-enactment of an historical event. I remember recently noting that the kidnapping of the Dutch industrialist Dr Herrema was only interesting if we were told something about Herrema and hiscaptor the Irish terrorist Eddie Gallaher. The same was equally true of Hess, a one-hour ITV 'play' by Ian Curteis which told the story of Rudolf Hess's dramatic arrival in Scotland in 1941 ending in his imprisonment in the Tower of London. Wolf Kehler, an unknown German actor, gave an excellent performance as the Deputy Fuhrer but at the end one was left wondering what it all amounted to. No mere sequence of events however makes a play. There must be some exploration of the characters involved, in this instance Hess and also Churchill, who made only a brief appearance lying in bed smoking a cigar. The interest of the Hess story lies partly in the way that Churchill reacted to his strange visitor and how he failed, through pride perhaps, to take advantage of an unexpected piece of good fortune. The decision to send the chilly figure of Lord Simon to interview Hess instead of someone who might have flattered him was in the event a tactical blunder which ended in Hess's clamming-up. But this aspect of the story was not explored nor were we shown any of the Cabinet's discussions during which, presumably, these matters were debated at great length. Mastermind (BBC-1) exercises some weird fascination which is difficult to define, at the same time I can't help feeling that it should be better organised. The choice of special subjects can be very limited — one man last week chose Prokoviev, Life and Times of— which must give the contenders an advantage of sorts. And however much the BBC may protest, I'm certain that some people's general knowledge questions are far easier than others . There ought to be a computer that could iron out the discrepancies. Either that or the whole thing should be run like the World Cup, with an interminable series of games before the final.
Previous page
