The natural way of death

Press, 6 August 1981, Page 15

The natural way of death

r Review!

Ken Strongman

On , Tuesday’s “Nature Watch” (Two) it was difficult to decide which was the more unusual, the plants or their owner. Adrian Slack (a name which was strangely just right), who was so enamoured of them.

We were thrust into a • world of controlled violence, worse than Saturday afternoon in the Waikato. It was a. seething turmoil of insects being seduced and beguiled into drink and drugs by botanical sirens and then eaten alive. This is the primrose path of dalliance with its assassinating vegetables.

Slack was obsessed, displaying his obsession with the worst flair of a horticultural : Clemment Freud. People often come to look and behave like their pets. Slack was uncomfortably like his plants, a smooth, yet hairy repulsiveness round an overly mobile mouth. He”was worse than Robert Hughes in the way in which he eulogised pitchers. His manner of speech together with completely inappropriate background music gave a most unpleasant impression. He thought the plants “Vewy, vewy attwactive,” could’tell that “that butterfly is enjoying himself,” and thought that “I could really put mv feet into the shoes of flies.”

To be kind. Slack was bizarre: to be less than kind, he was weird. And he had surrounded himself with a

weird world of violent vegetable matter. Were he to be in New Zealand, doubtless, it would all be seen as a question of law and order and the Venus fly-traps would be armed with truncheons.

“Fair Go” (One) is back and nothing is changed. The format is as usual and even the items have a familiar ring. There were: cars, of course, or at least comparing Wellington garages in what they notice when dealing with a warrant of fitness: the usual ravages wrought by a landslip, but this time just to a gas connection rather than to an entire community; landlord versus tenant; and a case of poor manufacture. It was all very repetitious and reminiscent.

What is its appeal? Unfortunately, it seems to be that of gossip and voyeurism. It affords a legitimised-by-tele-vision nosepoke into other people’s lives and the secure warmth of knowing that their troubles are worse than one’s own.

Occasionally, the “Fair Go” team sort out a problem or show up a trickster, but, more often than not. there is nothing of this. It all smacks of eye to the keyhole and ear to the tumbler pressed against the wall. It has a grubby, prying, murkiness about it. u’hich, seen as entertainment. is worrisome.

Also, the perennial point bears repetition. Public trial

on television is not a fair go. On the one side are professional television performers, chosen and paid because they are good at it. On the other arc rank amateurs. As we know only too well from recent events involving certain politicians, not everyone can sparkle in front of a camera.

There are other grounds for criticism. “Fair Go" debases the language. On Tuesday. taking a car to six Wellington garages was described as a “survey” and, later, as a “random survey." What nonsense.

It is worth noting that to do this “survey" they broke the law by driving” a car which had failed its test. Admitting this on television does not alter it. and might even encourage it.

Finally, it was somehow unsavoury to see Brian Edwards sitting between two protagonists in a dispute and quietly trying to be contentious. This might make for the sort of viewing which compels one to watch in case violence erupts, but it is far from a “Fair Go.”