Is there anyone finah?

Press, 17 July 1980, Page 13

Is there anyone finah?

r —, Review

Mollie Mackenzie

I Television’s afternoon programmes are placid', and pleasurable, with .none 7 of the. sort of fuss ’ thatvevening programmes, .such?as “McPhail and Gadsby,” ’ provoke. : ' The soaps, the serials/, old-old movies, the Beast. < fractiousness among..; the-' participants — and there „ has been a bit lately—-.is quelled with a glinty glance from the Mr Muscle-cleansed lenses, none .of - these enter- ' . tainments, even when dealing with - the sordid, the macabre, of the medical, confronts reality in a manner to alarm or dismay. To perplex and be- .. wilder, maybe, but just sit back, dear, everything passes. Then, too,. there’s “Dinah” the best talk show ever, yet the least flammable. The only contentiousness about it is the burning question of ■ her age. Just how old is she, this paragon of agelessness? ..

A rather less-than-gal-lant Auckland cosmetician and self-styled Hollywood gossip, David Hartnell, said in a Ray Woolf showtime chat.recently; “She’s 63 Look at her, what a block-and-tackle job ” If his hands, were as cutting as his tongue he’d do well in the surgical side of facial enhancement rather than on the end of his powder puff. • Despite this sort of flak, the.lady bounds on with youthful charm, tact, humour; and courtesy not at times devoid of a splash of acid, and she does this day after day. Her show attracts international top and the Beauties, where

talents (do they pay, or are they paid to be in this showcase of sweetness and light?) The best does not always come from the pros, of the entertainment world; they are frequently outshone by the talented in other spheres. Her guests with a .talent in the media number Mohammed Ali, confessing his self-promotional publicity as just a highly successful gimmick, and Christian Barnard, matching wits and warmth with ' Dinah then turning a scalpel tongue against an adversary over apartheid. The only Grand Master Wine Taster in America was a more peaceable chap. Most informative, too.. Did you know the cork can tell an awful lot about wine? Soft, fat, and pliable, kept moist and expanded, it’s a wonderful preserver of wine. Six line§ across the bottom of : a - cork indicates top quality winfe The colour test for red-wine is: garnet to brownish tint, over 10 years old; purplish, five years or less. Dinah’s Las Vegas guests, Liberace and Juliet Prowse, were serious when explaining the publicity over the enormous weekly they received never mentioned the fact that they had to provide and pay for all their own costumes and props and

whole show presentation.

Michael Caine was a star-turn lately. With quicksilver repartee and silicon-chip observation he justified Dinah’s later admiring comment that his personal concoction of wit should be bottled for sale. Disaster of the Dinah Show: of all people, Lucille./Ball. Out of her comic roles she comes across with as much light froth as a lead weight dropped on a chillblain. The delectable figure, timeless and beautiful clown-face, the showgirl costume of lolly pink and ostrich, promised the comedienne at her happiest. What did we get? The gravel voice pitched to rock bottom, imperious queenly gaze seeming to ask, “What am I doing on this other woman’s show?”

As an international totem she is sure of her public but with Dinah, as in a David Frost interview some years ago, the memory lingers of her lack of wit and sparkle and perpetual fidgets, plucking distractedly at her dress, an obvious case of nerves. Faced with one of life’s crises, Edith < Bunker, •of “All in the Family” • asked the impossible Archie: “Why can’t everybody be nice, like they are on the Dinah Show?”

It’s a good question for a good laugh. Perhaps Dinah’s success stems from the very implausibility of the proposition. Life isn’t that nice, but for an all-too-brief hour when strangers and friends meet and greet often with hugs and kisses, Dinah endeavours to make it so.