Woodward will always be Callan

Press, 18 June 1979, Page 15

Woodward will always be Callan

Television and Radio

Nothing short of a head; transplant is likely to separate Edward Woodward from being Callan for the rest of his life. Woodward is good ini “1990" (TV2 Fridays) as al reporter battling the myster-l ious forces that hold Britain; in their sway, etc., etc., but; I have found the only way to take him seriously in that;

role is to tape a large sign saying ‘‘Woodward not Callan” to the front of a flashing light — these can be obtained free from your local

roadworks — and stand it next to the tele for the duration of that programme. I suppose it’s a tribute to the force of the Callan role that Woodward never seems quite right doing anything else, whether conveying the; more restrained, more urbane cynicism of his "1990” part or, as I have heard him do several times on variety shows, gently assassinating harmless songs in a sort of grief-stricken, stiff-upper-lip

i style that one assumes is meant to convey sincerity. I keep watching over his shoulder for Lonely to shuffle in, or find myself ; waiting for Woodward’s face To implode into his ■brilliantly bitter “Now just! you watch it, mate.” Regan) in “The Sweeney" has devei-l oped his own very good;

‘Now just you watch it, | mate,” but I still think Cal- : lan's “Now just you watch it, mate” has never been i matched. I The setting in “1990” is jll years on, but the style is (often 70 years back. There was something very Edwardian in Friday’s episode, all mysterious clinics at the big house in the park and crawling around in ditches dodging white-coated attendants with coshes. Only the re-

cluse middle-European professor’s death-ray and the puzzling light that burns all night in the old windmill were missing from this stuff, at its worst; but, at its best, portraying the use of drugs and electric shock to ; persuade an anti-Govern-ment trade-union leader to go on the tube and say what

good chaps the Government were and how it was about time he retired, it was quite gripping. Ahem, excuse me a moment. Extensive searches conducted between the end of the preceding paragraph and the beginning of this one having failed to unearth the “Listener” once again, I must pay tribtue to the Unknown Actor who played the ageing trade-union leader movingly (well, movingly

might be larding it on a bit thick, but certainly a good bit more convincingly than some of the “Doctor Who” superannuitants in this series). The Unknown Actor (you remember him, he played (the short, thick-bodied, ageing, gravel-voiced, heart-of-gold, backbone.-of-tita-

nium, incorruptible-, salt-of-the-earth union leade, whose, gut might be resting regularly against the snow-white linen of board-room dinners! ...I, 4.’ -X.'tl • 1. I

but whose feet are still ' ! at the pitface with the lads,) in “Th Brothers" or “When The Boat Comes In” or “The Planemakers” or “The Troubleshooters” or something. Anyway, if that isn’t I the one I me-n, the one I’m thinkirg of is very similar,

(if that’s any help) did a superl, embittered diatribe against the hars’ rule of *’•» British Government, an address supj --dly made in America that was a great embarrassment to the Home

Secretary, played by a chap! who reminded me very; much of Robert Morley, but; wasn’t, you know the one. I The Unknown Actor was) at his best when forced, ini his role as the drugged and! |broken trade-union leader, to I appear on television reading) his retirement speech and) .tribute to the' Goxernment; from an electron: prompter) in a slurred, confused, incoherent manner. -It was a nice) piece of acting, even if its impact was blunted a little, by its being indistinguishable from the sort of performances w„ see regu-| larly from public figures who, as far as I know anyway, ven’t spent a weekend at the mysterious clinic in the park.

By

JOHN COLLINS

POINTS OF VIEWING