Potted party history on wrong note

Press, Issue 33842, 14 May 1975, Page 4

Potted party history on wrong note

Television One succumbed to an irresistible urge on Monday night to do a brief history of the Labour Party to go with a report on the party’s annual conference. Brief was the word. It was so brief as to be ositively perfunctory; and I its director of music i was drunk. There were suggestions of •‘The Longest Winter” again, but these only puffed outi the shortest history. , With the film clips of 1934 went the tune “Run, Rabbit, Run” which first proliferated in 1939. "Lili Marlene” then solicited attention with film clips of i 1939, but she didn’t begin \ winning the Africa Star until 1941. 1 However, safely in 1975. Tonight at Nine” made a

particularly good job of interpreting the conference itself, especially the Prime Minister's contribution. One advantage the conference had for TVI was to put i it alongside “Bill”' Rowling again. Earlier it had been chatting with "Rob” Muldoon; and then, just to show its fantastic level of acquaintance, it was plain ! “Muldoon.” 1 Obviously TVI is short of a word. Just as Women's Lib hates Mrs and Miss (and! ■ has coined Ms), so TVI! ! hates Mr. Where will it all end? # * * Tina whipped through the! weather in an outfit which,! in non-Dior terms, was loose; and vaguely Oriental. Then,’ presumably, she was back, home to run up her frock! for the next night. It is all quite a powerful performance — pretty smile, : nice gear, shapely hand, attractive voice, and a commentary that one prays will not suddenly let us all down. The only trouble is that; when it is all over we real-! ise we haven’t absorbed a | single thing of the forecast. * * * Des Britten may be red hot in the Cordon Bleu field but he has clearly not studied French at the Sorbonne. Most of us have no oblig j ation to attempt to pro-1

f nounce foreign words pro--3 perly; but since Mr Britten • chose the phrase ‘bon appetit” himself he has a duty -either to make a coiit scientious fist of saying it ■ or abandoning it for' someb thing simpler — like, “good •appetite.” . * * * Monday night's “Human ' Journey” was in need of a , good night’s rest. It had some good sequences of active men in the ' I countryside over the age of :;90, but then bogged down while groping round the ; cities. There was no obvious ■ enjoyment among those takJing part in the fitness pro- , grammes indoors; the lunch--time joggers in Hagley Park seem to be much better off/ 'l—- D.M.