TELEVISION “Seven Days" races off to a good start

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33773, 20 February 1975, Page 16

TELEVISION “Seven Days" races off to a good start

“Seven Days,” the new current-affairs television programme, with Des Monaghan in the saddle, got away to a good start last night with its “Grand National Election Stakes.”

Mr Monaghan leaned heavily on his sports programme experience to grab the viewer’s attention.

Not only did he have the main horses, riders, commentators, tipsters, and punters, but also Uncle Tom Cobley, Bill Rowling, clothcapped Tom Scott, and all. The producer cunningly introduced “Seven Days” with a few feet of the racetrack election preview, and switched to a study of the form of boilermakers—played straight. But by then the. viewing audience was probably well hooked, and it did not matter.

“Seven Days” has been touted as a current-affairs package with a different look, strong on investigative journalism. In spite of a tendency to overwork the track language in some parts, and a failure

to introduce it at all in others the election piece was a welcome change. The same old faces were there, but instead of earnest dissertations, the political scientists let themselves go —with gusto in the vernacular so familiar to the Kiwi punter. Even a grinning Prime Minister talked of having a firm grip of the reins, which he did not intend to relin-. quish. The script-writers had a ball. The Government party was stuffing itself with Swiss banknotes and Arab petrodollars; there were rumours from the Bellamy stables; a delightful reference to Mr Watt being sold to an English breeder for an undisclosed sum; and an uneasy likening of Mr Duncan Maclntyre to a prized lamb brought back to the fold.

Curiously, the National Party president, Mr George Chapman, serious and intent, did not enter into the raceform discussion in anything but conventional terms.-

There were a couple telling flashbacks recalling Mr Muldoon’s previous form, and, to

bring us quite up to date, the results of a National Research Bureau poll which showed Labour and National running neck and neck were included. UNION LEADERS A link with the Boilermakers’ Union investigation was provided by David Frost Show flashbacks. The union’s leaders were brought to the screen and a reporter, Lindsay Perigo, took a close look at the muchdiscussed nature of the men themselves. But Mr Perigo was perhaps a little too nice. We skirted the bust of Lenin. The question about being Communists was carefully put to each, and just as carefully answered. But viewers were still left wondering about the driving force behind the militancy of these men. However, it was no doubt all very difficult, and getting them to appear on camera was probably no mean feat. The field is wide open for hard-hitting investigative reporting, and it was good to see “Seven Days” attempt to dig behind the headlines. —K.C.