Opportunity knocked

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34119, 3 April 1976, Page 5

Opportunity knocked

(By

A. K. GRANT)

I am as I write these words undergoing a most acute moral crisis. I watched “OpportunityKnocks” on Thursday night, and the temptation to be sidesplittingly nasty about every act is almost more than I can resist. Malicious barbs are bubbling up in my mind, waiting to tumble on to the page. But I can’t do it. I really can’t. It would be like pulling the wings off flies. Mind you, is pulling the wings off flies any worse than coating them with the contents of an aerosol can? Probably not. But does that justify me making richly deserved but highly unpleasant remarks about the “Opportunity Knockers”? I don’t know. I just don’t know. What would Napoleon have done? Or Guiseppe Verdi? I don’t know that either. O well. I shall just have to leam to live with the spiritual agony of not saying clever destructive things about “Opportunity Knocks,” and hope that I shall emerge a better but more boring person for it. * * *

“The Missiles of October” was for the most part very well done. William Devane made a good fist of Kennedy. Like most of the actors chosen he was much less physically prepossessing than his real-life counterpart, but he, like his colleagues, caught what one recalls as the spirit of the original. The exception was Howard Da Silva, who did not convince me as Kruschev. Mind you, it may well be that Kruschev wouldn’t have convinced me as Kruschev, either, but whatever the reason, Mr Da Silva’s performance was an inevitably conspicuous failure. Otherwise, there was little to

criticise about a most exciting and frightening production. It was eerie to realise and remember just how close the Russians and Americans came to a radical restructuring of the environment through the detonation of fissionable and fissile devices (elaborate synonym for nuclear holocaust). It was equally eerie and highly alarming to read in Friday’s paper of the buildup towards another confrontation between Russia and America over Cuba. Let us hope we all survive to enjoy a programme about that crisis in 13 years time. * * * Dick Emery ended his show with a sketch about a bride and a garage pro? prietor which was rank even by the standards his scriptwriters (John Warren and John Singer) set for themselves. Emery can be terribly funny, but for the most part that is in spite of his material, not because of it.

The street interviews with his gallery 7 of regular characters are the best parts, of his show, but once he gets on to actual sketches his i writers do him in. Ss sis I learn that Television One: is to drop its clip of the i schoolchildren singing “God! Defend New Zealand.” I am j too moved to speak. Thoughts that lie too deep for tears clog my nasal pas- j sages. Never again to see those dear little children! singing that wonderful song.' Can life hold anything more?! Let us hold our breaths and! pray that the Atttomey-, General does not enter a stay I to prevent TVI from carrying' out the most important act! of television policy since the' decision to give the second! channel to a second channel