SELWYN TOOGOOD WILL HAVE CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33532, 13 May 1974, Page 4

SELWYN TOOGOOD WILL HAVE CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

Treasure hunts delight ' youngsters. Quiz shows for substantial prizes hold a similar appeal for adults. The scheduling of Selwyn Toogood on Saturday evenings with his “It’s in the Bag” show will be popular with viewers. Selwyn Toogood wop much attention on radio j with his give-away pro- i gramme, and as an after-1 noon television feature last year it was also acclaimed. It deserved evening time. Not that the first of the series on Saturday was an unqualified success. The ing Heather Eggleton, his assistant, muffed her lines once, and the sound was sufficiently erratic for an to be tendered. But Mr Toogood, affable, 1 beaming, benign, glasses i gleaming, did very well. (There are four segments to I the show, and it seems he does not have sufficient time

for the prolonged auctioneering with participants that used to delight radio audiences. He cannot have been too pleased about the quality of the answers to the “bag” questions. They seemed very simple; but no doubt studio nerves were responsible for some of the failures. For the rest of the evening’s viewing there was the i usual mixture of sentiment, and information. •The “Thrillseekers,” often at a loss to. present something in keeping with the title, surprised with some very exciting photography of rock climbers, and “Search,” very often a complete waste of time, did rather better with some very well-staged fights and slick presentation, when ' Hugh O’Brian was not engaged in those interminable conversations with Burgess Meredith. “World Scene” gave an effective account of the Irish I troubles with its piece on ithe border town of Strabane.

The ghastly recital of murders and reprisals, and further reprisals hit home par--1 ticularly hard, because it • concentrated on the townspeople’s accounts of the situation. And in its brief iterr . “Focus” took a revealing look at the problems anc sufferings of the wives and children of prison inmates. The last of the Julie Andrews shows scored again in choreography and colour. Rich Little, an outstandingly good mimic, contributed a 1 briefly serious note — a speech from a Henry Fonda film based on a Steinbeck novel. Miss Andrews and . Steve Laurence engaged in some pleasing duets. This show has had a very long run, but it has been an ex- ' tremely polished production, ' and a show, without com- ! plications, intended to spread a little happiness. The feature films were 1 hardly memorable. “Violent 1 Saturday” starred Victor 1 Mature, who always seems • to have stepped out of a ' toothpaste advertisement. It was often slow moving in long-winded attempts to I present portraits of the townspeople before the bank robbery — but the hackneyed lines helped to make them very vague sketches. Not even the charm of Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman could do much for “Indiscreet.” It was a romantic comedy, in which the comedy was slight and occasional, the romance a stilted and - stagey business. —R.T.B.