Boring old Hart

Press, 27 November 1980, Page 19

Boring old Hart

Review

Ken Strongman

What would you do? Someone is causing insurance problems by stealing jewellery on your fleet of luxury liners. Obviously, vou’d’telephone your wife from your Rolls to her Facel " Vega, round up vour general foctomm and go off the next day for a cruise. There you are, incognito and wisecracking every' minute to sort out the problem. Thus was Tuesday’s plot of “Hart to Hart" (Two), with the smooth Robert Wagner and the jokingly nubile Stefanie Powers. On Tuesday at 8. Hed to Hed demonstrates that there is the odd occasion when the programmers get it right. It clashes with “All Creatures," and hence offers a genuine choice. No doubt everyone except one lonely reviewer was caught up in the gritty romance of the Yorkshire Dales. Meanwhile our intrepid millionaires were skeet shooting on the poop deck, or was it poop shooting on the skeet deck? There were also asymmetric bars on the mezzanine deck and disco dancers on the sun deck. Whose fantasies does Bak to Bak pander to? Fast cars, jet boats and planes, yachts, money no

object, and. best of all, telephones in cars. No wonder they can remain immaculate while righting the world’s wrongs, at least those which involve their own property. And they smile all the time as they take showers together. Wouldn't you? As ever, with this perpetual American gunge, we are being fed stereotypes, in this case streotypes of fantasy life. Proceeding Navel to Navel, “Mind Your Language” (Two) lays stereotypes on stereotypes, racial this time. For the most part, as the English teacher tries to guide a cacophony of foreigners through the vagaries of the language, there are exhausted jokes dragging themselves- along on all fours. But now and again there is some good material, even though it is probably better suited to radio than to television. “According to the New

Testament there are twelve apostrophes." “Minks are bred for defer." “People who live in glass-houses should get undressed in the dark." They make it worth watching once a month or less.

Fortunately, Tuesday on Two was saved yet again by Reggie Perrin. “Fighting for peace is like making love for virginity.” Lines like that should be recorded for posterity, not buried in the midst of a welter of words. It was a delightful episode with a nymphomaniac running rife (whatever that is) through the clinic. “Take that key out of your keyvage.” So it went on. faster than the Marx Brothers.

The problem with any attempt at reviewing on Tuesday night came from the compelling minibudget subtitles which meandered unpredictably in and out of people’s shoulders. For a start, they could have been better placed. Of course, they were irrelevant to the programmes, which in itself could lead to a w'hole new concept in subtitles. However, they were very relevant to life. It is extraordinarily difficult to concentrate on drama

(even the mel® variety), wit. therapy, or sex when trying desperately to work out how much more money in the pocket will ensue from a 5.5 per cent tax cut. and whether or not a university job constitutes a small business, or even the (admittedly remote) possibility of an oil or gas strike in the back garden. Still. “Eye Witness” made it all clear.

Finally, please note that Miss Powers’s clothes were by Botany wardrobes and that your reviewer’s were by Oxfam. As Reggie Perrin would, and did, say: panacea for all Mankind? — stuff it.