Balanced programme, but expectations not met

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32540, 25 February 1971, Page 4

Balanced programme, but expectations not met

1 There could be few complaints about lack of balance in Tuesday night’s CHTV3 programme, which took viewers from events in Coronation Street to a mildly dramatic play, to the framing of Sergeant Hawkins in “Sofetly, Softly” and finally to the extravagances of Benny Hill. But if there was variety, there was no especial satisfaction from watching any of these programmes.

They all had their points, and they all left this viewer just slightly disappointed. The play “The Woman at The Door” began promisingly enough. The wife of a young doctor, rebelling against inattention brought upon by his studies, arranges an assignation with her employer. On arrival at the man’s empty flat, she sees a man and a woman arguing bitterly, and the man departing. A few minutes later, the distraught woman committed suicide, and the doctor’s wife, badly frightened, escapes from the building unnoticed. The police investigation hints at murder, and frightens her too, for she is aware that they know there had been someone in the flat next to that occupied by the

dead woman. Pressure on her is increased when the wife of her employer asks her to keep silent, to save, their marriage and his job, but when she thinks a man has been arrested she goes to the police to tell them she saw him leave the building before the tragedy. They knew all about it. It was not a badly told or acted tale, and as the doctor’s wife, Jennifer Hillary was appealing. But it lacked the sort of punch and point a Somerset Maugham could have given the situation. A further weakness, in the view of some women watchers, was the improbability of anyone even contemplating being unfaithful to the young doctor, when the young doctor was the handsome James Kerry of "Champion House." The "Softly, Softly” story also rather lacked conviction, Barlow ordered his lads to “lean on” a known criminal who had brought off some robberies, to persuade him to vacate Barlow’s patch. In the course of this exercise, Sergeant Hawkins approached the villain, alone at night on a quiet road, to question him, then left him. Then the criminal called op a colleague, who had been out of sight, to beat him up: and the complaint of assault and robbery made to the police led inevitably to Hawkins.

One of the attractions of “Softly, Softly" is that there

is a distinct doubt, quite often, as to just what will happen; the crime squad has by no means a perfect store. But there was never any doubt about the outcome of this tale. Barlow saved Hawkins from disgrace by persuading the criminal’s lawyer to align himself with the defence; it was a form of blackmail, for the criminal was not prepared to be crossexamined by someone who knew so much about him as the lawyer did. And so he abandoned his plan to pick out Hawkins at an identification parade. And that was that, in a weaker story than most in this series.

Benny Hill, a delight in the first programme of his series, did not maintain that standard. The court room sketch which occupied all the first part of the programme was not worth the time spent on it. Later, there were some funny bits—a Ken Russell-style film on the Welsh composer Gavin Blod came off well, and the several versions of "Little Bo Peep*’—m the language of Shakespeare, as an adventure for “The Revengers” (Steed with bowler hat and all) and as a Swedish film, were all delightful. Next Tuesday Benny Hill has among his guests the singers and dancers of the Red Army Pioneer Corps. And they should be especially well worth watching— PANDORA.