All mod. cons

Press, 31 December 1980, Page 11

All mod. cons

Review

John Collins

The three-monthly dutyvisit to New Zealand’s own gripping and unstoppable drama, "Close to Home” (One), on Mondayrevealed that, though the rest of us are gradually slipping towards a point where it will be a toss-up next Christmas between a new banana leaf for the roof and more mealymealv for the village scavengers, the standard of living in Avalonia continues to improve.

New Zealand's own gripping and unstoppable drama, "Close to Home.” began many millions of dollars ago with at least some attempt at authenticity, both in acting and in sets. The interiors looked like typical New Zealand interiors, the poorer characters worrying and fussing and sighing in rooms that were monuments to impoverished bad taste, and the richer characters sighing and owrrying and fussing in rooms that were monuments to unimpoverished bad taste. No more. The dutyvisits now reveal fussing and sighing and worrying at all levels of Avalonian society amid picture windows with splendid harbour views, wall-to-wall all rooms and hall, delightful character residences, lovely featurettes making them a must, set in delightful, secluded t r e e-lined cul-de-sacs, could be doctors’ residences (M.R.E.1.N.Z.).

There is a familiarity about these real-estate salesmen’s dream dwellings. It isn’t the familiarity of everyday life in any part of New Zealand, despite the often stated defence of the cash-gobbl-ing, gripping, and unstoppable drama that it

does the important job cf howing us ourselves. The sets are familiar because they can be seen in almost any soap opera or "comedy” emanating from American television: they don’t resemble anywhere many ofus have ever seen; but, “ then, the characters that wander around them don’t resemble anyone many of us have ever met.

The fantasy sets, the everyday rapes and murders and arrests and overdoses, the almost Chinese moralising on social issues, of "Close to Home” continue its lurch along the sticky, sweetsmelling road of “Days of Our Lives" and "The Young and the Restless.” Some people — the ratings suggest, quite a lot — like plastic morality plays. There is a place for them, though my choice of place would probably differ from that of those who watch them. But few would argue, as the Avalonian rulers do, that a plastic morality series should be allowed to cripple any attempt to develop worth-while local drama.

The cash-gobbling, gripping, unstoppable Chinese morality play was touted when it first started as a good training ground for actors who would eventually be used in a growing local flow of television drama. But. The Thing has grown to such an extent that the training school

uses up so much money, there is no money for plays for the trainees to graduate into. They seem likely to cannon round those Gucci apartments till the velour wears thin and the diagonal veneer peels from the feature entrances.

Into the bed of the ailing "Kaleidoscope," which has been wheeled away from grim-faced Avalonian nurse aides to do its interviews with Masterton tutu embroiderers in a quieter ward, has come a much more robust occupant, the splendid and opulent "The Christians” (Two).

Presented by the very Cambridge (their suits never fit and they say “parrfectly gudd” where another pronunciation would be perfectly good) Ramber Gascoigne. "The Christians” is out of Clark’s "Civilisation” by "The Ascent of Man" and with a dash of “The Robe."

Charlton Heston had not appeared by the end of the first of 13 painting-, icon-, and ceremonysprinkled parts. But Christ had; andit was marvellous, for once, to see the history of Christianity begin to be explored and sumptuously illustrated in a detached way rather than sold by a believer. Gascoigne does Christianity no disrespect by treating its traditions and beliefs in the way that we have long accepted as appropriate to documentaries on, say, Buddhism. But his occasional "Believers say . . and “Christians believe . . give a perspective rare in a television service that traditionally seems to believe its viewers are one hundred per cent believers.