Television and Radio An alliance in some doubt

Press, 28 March 1979, Page 19

Television and Radio An alliance in some doubt

By

A. K. GRANT

I cannot make up my mind about “Wilde Alliance,” the new series which started on Television One on Monday night. It stars John Stride as an extremely bossy thriller writer and Julia Foster as the wife whom he bosses about, she e ideavouring to pursue her own career as a painter in between typing John Stride’s manuscripts and cooking his meals. If Monday is anything to go by. it is going to depend on highly implausible plots: on Monday Stride had his flat bugged by British security because he kept thinking up» plots for his thrillers which involved hypothetical weapons which were exactly the same as real ones being tested bv the RAF British security were not very impressive; they left a bug in a place where it was easily found by Julia Foster while dusting. The dialogue varies be-

tween the occasionally witty and the appallingly brittle. One does not, of course, see the scriptwriters, but one can almost hear the beads of sweat standing out on their brows as they endeavour to compose a good line. But I am sure

they are making a mistake by making John Stride so assertive. He was, of course, brilliantly successful as David Main, the assertive solicitor, but although an assertive solicitor is a novelty, it is not an implausibility, whereas thriller writers are not assertive. They are mystics, like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was obsessed with spiritualism and the occult, or gentle alcoholics like Raymond Chandler, or fairly boring people who

do nothing but write and get rich like Alistair Maclean. What thriller writers don’t do is stride about th? place being assertive in a way which would be witty if it was a trifle wittier. Or at any rate, if they do, then 1 doubt

whether their books are particularly thrilling. Some of the other characters leave a bit to be desired as well. Stride’s literary agent is particularly repellent, and the thought of endless subacerbic dialogue between

him and Stride is ; profoundly depressing. j On the other hand, there j is a man upstairs who I makes blue movies. If he j becomes a more central i character, along with his i cast. then, us connoisseurs of televisual drama may ■ find the series compelling. I Otherwise, I suspect fut- I ure episodes, may prove to I be like some Of Oscar j Wilde’s alliances: .more trouble than they were .1 worth.

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