ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Substitute For Action

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30558, 29 September 1964, Page 12

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Substitute For Action

New Zealanders have a : passion for committees. They are faced with a problem; the answer usually is not to make a decision but to set up .a. committee which can do all the talking and take all the responsibility. I know some committees work hard and produce results; I believe too •many of them substitute talk for action. - When • the Government appoints committees so it can avoid responsibility for awkward or embarrassing decisions, I’m not surprised that our TV lords and masters are inclined to follow the same line. There are certain things the N.Z.B.C. could be doing—one is tb tackle more vigorously controversial topical questions that concern us all as New Zealanders. Instead it produces not committees but discussion panels which talk all round a lot of questions and rarely arrive at any real conclusions. Filling Time Discussions panels are not a native New Zealand TV product, and the N.Z.B.C. is doing the same as everyone else in presenting them. But I feel the time involved in producing such programmes could be better spent. No doubt the producer and his team work hard. The panel is chosen, the questions are selected, the speakers play patball with them, and another discussion has been seen, heard, and forgotten. Radio request sessions are much the same. Listeners write in and ask for records, the records are selected and played, and an awkward period of listening time is filled the easy way.

So far the effects of “Point at Issue” on me have been soporific rather than exciting. I am glad it is less political than its predecessor. It has a better chairman; Christopher

Pottinger contributes more to the discussion, does not allow speakers to get the bit between their teeth, and can gather up the loose threads of a discussion. Dull Discussions “Point at Issue” is an unpretentious programme, although it has suffered from its ration of opinionated speakers. Lack of pretension is not a fault; my chief complaint about the discussions is that they have been dull. Serious questions can be discussed in a lively manner, and a spark of wit might

kindle my enthusiasm. But I’m afraid there is not much wit to be found in New Zealand’s halls of academe from which panels draw too many of their members the practised speakers who so often talk at me instead of to me. I detected in “Piont at Issue” a slight flavour of “After Dinner,” the Dunedin discussion panel which began promisingly but didn’t last long enough to prove its quality. Best TV Panel Now the Dunedin producer, Roy Melford, has come up with the best panel I have seen on TV in New Zealand. “Any Questions” really is a discussion panel; its members discuss the questions they receive, and don’t ram opinions down the viewers’ throats. If other discussion panels were as well-balanced and vital as “Any Questions” my hostile attitude to them might change. I like the blunt common sense of Philip

Smithells; Sir John Walsh is a genial and perceptive chairman who never lets discussion wander, and it is pleasing to listen to someone like John Harre who can relate his subject—social anthropology—to the question he has to answer. The women on the panel, lona Williams and Ethel' Morrell, have been slow to take advantage of the opportunities they have been given, but I have enjoyed their contributions. And I have been heartened .by the courtesy they have been accorded by their colleagues—something that has been lacking on other panels which have been inclined to ride roughshod over female views. All the speakers on “Any Questions” carry their knowledge lightly. They do not use it as a bludgeon, and even trival, questions are given the fullest consideration. This is one panel which doesn’t leave questions hanging in the air unanswered. I feel, however, that it could be used to better advantage. It is supposed to answer questions on learning, loving, living, and leisure, but the field is so wide that even beards and Beatles have been talked about. Beatles And Beards The Beatles and the beards were dealt with cheerfully and competently by the bearded John Harre, but I felt that asking a panel of the intellectual calibre of the “Any Questions” speakers to deal with such trivia was like using a cannon to kill a mosquito. It looks as If discussion panels will become a way of New Zealand TV life in spite of my feeble objections. But if we are compelled to have discussion panels let’s keep a good one like “Any Questions” and not drop it before it has got into its stride. And if the N.Z.B.C. consults a dictionary it will find that a panel is a kind of saddle. Let it not be used for riding hobby horses.

LOOKING AT TELEVISION WITH C. C.