If these are Rugby men, and thank the Lord they’re not...

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32604, 12 May 1971, Page 4

If these are Rugby men, and thank the Lord they’re not...

If the British Lions Rugby team about to tour New Zealand has even the slightest resemblance to “Bangelstein’s Boys”—which is highly unlikely—New Zealand can look forward to quite overwhelming success in the test matches. A more dissolute lot could hardly be imagined, nor one with a more lighthearted approach to the game.

“let’s get changed—we're on in 10 minutes,” said one of the team, watching another game from the side-line. Not for Bangelstein’s Boys the dressing-room devotions which usually precede matches in New Zealand. But they did display an enormous appetite for beer and girls. “Bangelstein’s Boys” was a play about a Rugby team taking part in a three-day football festival at Southend. One member of the team, a married man, has been having a passionate affair with a girl; his wife has two brothers in the football team. And the antagonism between the brothers and the defaulter provided the basis for Colin Welland’s play. If it had a message, it was no more than that young men, when married, have to toe the line but young unmarried men may behave like tom cats and be jolly good chaps. It was an extraordinarily

coarse dialogue, designed to bring out the players’ addiction to sex and the suds. These lecherous young men, on the bus journey to Southend, at the football, in the bar, went through almost the full repertoire of raucous, bawdy Rugby songs, all of them familiar to New Zealand footballers, Rugby addicts hoping for some film footage on the skills of the game might have switched off, disappointed, but there was some very clever camera work to capture the vigour and hurly-burly of the game.

The intimate scenes from bath-house and boozer must have rung nostalgic bells for some, although the Vdesigned jerseys on one of the teams in the opening scene must have made a few wince.

Rugby in Britain is said to be more social than competitive, at this club level. But it is doubtful if New Zealand Rugby can claim many as tough as the one who downed his beer in a time trial then bit a piece out of the glass and chewed it up. If it does nothing else, "Bangelstein’s Boys" will probably be responsible for Rugby in this country winning new supporters. They will be the wives and sweethearts who will fee! it is wise to comi along and keep an eye on things. * • *

The “Evening with Burt Bacharach" was an attractive change of presentation, although when the first chorus line appeared, and Sacha Distel walked down the elaborate tinsel staircase it looked like being just

another musical spectacular. But Burt Bacharach has expressed a wide diversity of ideas and moods in his music, and this programme, almost an hour long, was well worth watching and hearing. « » •

“In Case of Fire” was a dramatic documentary on the work of the London Fire Brigade, and its unending campaign against carelessness and incompetence. The fire fighter is, perhaps, taken for granted. The dangers and difficulties of his job, the versatility he is expected to attain, were clearly drawn, and the genuine fire-fighting scenes were startling and disturbing. And he works 56 hours a week, for wages ranging from £l6 to £2O a week. It was a documentary which had real impact.

* * * And there was another delightful little sketch from Bill Cosby. So often in a delicate situation, sft often a loser, Chet Kincaid accepts disaster with a wry smile, a lift of an eyebrow, a faint change of expression. Bill Cosby is one of the great entertainers. —PANDORA.

•rMae.—The Dallas Aces regained the lead in the world bridge championship when play was resumed on Sunday night after a brief rest period. The ; Acea, the defending champion, . beat North America, IS to 2. Australia won by the same , margin over France, and rele|l© BfBCOtN* pIBCCo BrAZU ADO 1 China tied. After six sessions of - Nationalist China 45, Bradl 42, t North America 34.