Three themes stir one emotion

Press, 20 December 1978, Page 19

Three themes stir one emotion

[Television and Radio

And there was a man. a watcher of television, one who watched the television. And this man, this television watcher, was ! wont to watch television. • And he hoped information . and entertainment could ' be known from it. And he I knew them not. And he fell to swooning i and crying out loud: I “Stuff this for a lark,” : and weeping and wailing and gnashing his dental I work, unto which Freedent was said not to stick. And as he lay there

came a bright star in the ! east, a star called Hanafi, ! before whom even men in i denim hacking jackets at | Avalon bowed in respect. I And the “Listener” filled ! the heavens with praise. i But the swooning man, I the television watcher, sought comfort and knew it not. And there appeared unto him an angel, who said: “Arise, and know thou the law of television in this land. Expect the first-rate and thous shalt only be disappointed. For this is the land where the third-rate is exalted and the first-rate is driven forth. And by the way, thou stiff, don’t believe all that guff about the Freedent. There ain’t been a gum made yet that won’t clog up dentures. Believe me, I know.” And he was gone. And so the man decided to watch “Hayes on Fear” with this new attitude, and also to drop this bibjlical style of reviewing as it becomes tedious before terribly long. The third, and I think final, of the “Hayes on ...” series was uninspiring stuff, though, even

given the new determined effort to adopt the native habit of expecting far less of local goods and productions than imported ones. However kindly one tries to look on Hanafi Hayes’s efforts, however much one tries not to compare him with, say, Johnny Morris or Alan Whicker, one remains conscious that to make a series about such complex yet common emotions as love, laughter, and fear, and to wrap them up in a series using a “Mr X on

...” title is a very ambitious project, not to say, er pretentious.

The title strongly implies an interesting, new, valuable, and very personal view. It does not prepare the viewer for a string of statements of the obvious, accompanied by hammy little play-acting scenes: “The fear of heights is very common

.. . ” (picture of traffic taken from height); “For the claustrophobic, even such a common experience as this can be terrifying

. . (picture of a lift); “For others a room full of people can bring untold horror . . (picture of a bunch of amateur actors trying to look like a horrifying roomful of people); etc, etc, etc. Nothing new. Nothing interesting whimsical and personal. But, remember the angel .. . Of course ... Hanafi Hayes rounded off his quirky, whimsical and locally-made look at life and all its delightful foibles with a quirky, whimsical, and locallymade look at fear, with all its delightful foibles. Hanafi, one of New Zea-

land’s leading lookers at life with all its delightful foibles had produced a good durable series, one ideally suited to New Zealand conditions and yet likely to bring in millions of trillions in overseas sales and follow in the steps of '“The Governor” and the First New Zealand Expeditionary Force in really putting this country on the map, while not sticking to most dental work ...

By

JOHN COLLINS

POINTS OF VIEWING