TV With C.C. Quiz Makers Miss Jackpot

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30879, 12 October 1965, Page 11

TV With C.C. Quiz Makers Miss Jackpot

On the technical side TV quiz programmes are probably as difficult to plan and bring to the screen as any other programmes. But most of them seem to be the product of a lazy imagination somewhere in the N.Z.B.C. Their format reveals little original thinking, they are conceived in terms of radio, and they follow a familiar line.

A request session on the radio provides an easy way out for the programme organisers. All it needs basically are the listeners’ requests and the records. A TV quiz programme tike “Highlight,” which finishes this week, can be put together in much the same way. It needs a quiz master, a set of questions each week, and several brave viewers who are prepared to expose their knowledge or lack of it to the rest of the TV audience. But without some novelty in its presentation it will just plod along like all the others.

NOT SWITCHED ON There has been nothing novel about “Highlight.” In the modern idiom it has never been switched on. The questions have been either too difficult or too easy, the competitors have been uneven >n their ability and often intensely nervous, and the proceedings each Saturday evening have been unexciting even when the winner has faced the jackpot question. The jackpot in the final session will be worth winning; 1 doubt whether the competitors’ progress towards it will be worth watching.

Much depends in a TV quiz programme on the. personality of the quiz master. He should be able to set the competi-

tors at ease, keep a firm hand on them, and know more about the questions than they do. “Highlight” has had David Tennant in this role. He has played it pleasantly and competently, but his easygoing, amiable style is not suited to a programme of this nature which should move at a fast pace. At times he has been a trifle too tolerant of competitors’ answers to questions, and occasionally he has even been confused by a question himself. Also I question why an adjudicator should be needed on such a programme. The quiz master should be able to decide his own problems if he is firm and quickwitted enough. LITTLE LECTURES “Highlight” could have done without an adjudicator. Dr. John Moffat, who could become a TV personality if given the chance, did all that was asked of him; his miniatirre lectures on questions which competitors failed to answer were informative, but they slowed down proceedings. Like many other viewers I want to be entertained by a quiz programme, not informed. If the producers had been more imaginative and perceptive they could have asked Dr. Moffat to act as quiz master. I doubt whether he would have accepted the role: I am sure “Highlight" would have been improved by his dry, precise approach to quiz questions. Since “Highlight” began it has left one question discreetly unanswered. Where does the money come from to reward the contestants? “As there are no sponsored programmes on TV I presume it comes from the pockets of the N.Z.B.C. In the corpora-

tion’s total budget the amount allocated to such a programme is probably not excessive. But the return on the investment has not been high. The final jackpot this week will be worth more than £250. If “Highlight” loses I will be pleased for the contestant’s sake. But I will not be convinced that the jackpot and what has been paid out before have been well spent for the benefit of viewers. IDEAL GUIDE With vague memories of a programme which used Elizabeth Taylor as a gimmick to make the sights and sounds of London more attractive to the viewer, I was doubtful about another programme in

the same pattern. But “Sophia Loren in Rome” made my Sunday evening. Miss Loren did not have to depend on her reputation as a film star to make me enjoy her conducted tour of one of the great cities of the world. She knows Rome, and she loves it. This was obvious in the way she described its life by day and night, its sights and sounds, and its people. She was far more than an attractive ornament in a superbly photographed film with a first-class script. Her quiet, soft voice, her gaiety, and her flashes of wit, made her an ideal guide to a wonderful city. On one occasion she said she was not a regular tourist guide. It is a pity she is not.