P.M. holds Edwards in rebroadcast

Press, 22 July 1976, Page 15

P.M. holds Edwards in rebroadcast

The Edwards-Muldoon interview, rebroadcast for South Island viewers on

Tuesday evening, was one of the Prime Minister’s more masterly television performances. The major portion of the programme was devoted to the economy, and Mr Muldoon handled Edwards’s questions in this area with consummate ease.

He effectively employed one of his favourite techniq ics: “I’ll explain it for you, if you like,” he would say to Edwards, in a manner which suggested that what he was about to expiam was difficult for a layman to understand, except when explained byMr Muldoon, but that he knew in advance that the explanation would be a waste of time because Edwards would quite plainly prefer to cling to his own irrational prejudices on the subject.

His putting-down of Edwards was made easier by the fact that although Edwards is plainly a most intelligent man, his intelligence is that of the moralist rather than the accountant.

For that reason Edwards was able to press the Prime Minister much more effectively on the question of the South African tour, a question which raises moral issues, and his questioning pointed up the. inconsistency between the Government’s professed policy of non-interference

in sporting tours, and the fact thct the team went off with the Government's blessing, as conveyed by Ken Comber, and with Mr Mu.Jo'n's as well, both as an individual and as Prime Mini. ter.

This part of the. interview- was both engrossing and revealing. The last portion, devoted to abortion and homosexuality, resulted in nothing very new being said by Mr Muldoon about his views on these sub-

jects, although his power of quick and effective expression was displayed on a number of occasions, most particularly when Edwards asked him what right mtn had to legislate on the subject of abortion, since men don't have babies.

“No,” replied Mr Muldoon instantly, “but men do have children.." Whatever colour one's political views lend to the spectacles through which one observes Mr Muldoon, it would be difficult to deny that he appeared to advantage on this occasion.

“Softly, Softly” returned, and I must confess to some forebodings about it. i have never found Hawkins, now in charge of the Task Force, a particularly interesting character.

Nice enough, no doubt, and i good policeman, but colourless by comparison with Barlow and Watt.

And now that Barlow has gone Watt is being forced into a veign of Barlowmimictv which does mo suit him. At the end of “Errors.” Tuesday night's episode, he was made to say: “I'll take admissions — even confessions — anytime, but that doesn't mean I can forgive anybody." That is a Barlow line, not a Watt line. 1 am also getting sick and tired of the Chief Constable wandering around, obviously suffering from the delusion that he 's a Great Man. What he needs is a well-placed jab with a sharp pointy truncheon. The second programme in me series “Something to Look Forward To” left me with much the same fee’ing I get from a disappointing “Monty Python” episode, which must be a compliment of sorts.

There was one genuinely original and imaginative sketch, involving Macpnail and Payne as a pair ot loonies whose pleasure it is to try to leap into planes from the end of the runway at Mangere. This was quite enchantingly amusing. But the “Robman and Bria..” sequences left me, not cold, since I was sitting by a blazing fire, but indifferent to the point of mild intolerance. The idea is not strong enougn to support the length of the sequences. And cue good idea was pretty well wasted. 1 refer to the sketch in which Payne, as a camp bank teller, insists upon counting out a whole lot of change for a bank robber.

There was room . to develop this, but Macphail and Payne obviously did not have enough confidence in it, and having set up the situation they lost their nerve and closed the sketch before it had really got going.

There was one other nice sketch involving Payne, Macphail and Craig having a spat while backing Bridgette Allen. And Bridgetie Allen's version of “What a Difference a Day Made" was the best piece of singing I have seen or heard by a New Zealander, not excluding my < wr>.