Nature world a nice place to inhabit

Press, 3 September 1981, Page 15

Nature world a nice place to inhabit

F Revievvl

Douglas McKenzie

All over the world are people whose interest is to bring various aspects of nature to the television screen. Not only is their interest deep and wide in individual aspects but. taken together, their presentations cover a staggering range of the activities of the world which would presumably still be present if human beings didn't happen to be in the world as well.

The result is a place which seems very nice to live in. and the presenters of these riches strike the viewer as being a good.lot, too.

Often the nature world which is shown — w’hether aerial, terrestial, or submarine — is literally on a microscopic scale, so that optical instruments have to be called on to illustrate the fascinations of the subject.

On Tuesday, though, in “Nature Watch" on Two, the discussion was more particularly about the habits of butterflies, which almost anyone can see with the naked eye and which, apart

from being generally beautiful, are sometimes found to be brutal, thus making them interesting on two disparate planes.

Dr Miriam Rothschild will do anything for both wild flowers and butterflies; and, since the one helps to propagate the other. Dr Rothschild lives in a constant world of satisfaction.

She is a close and professional observer of how her plants and animals live — and, not only live but carry on: she declared, with a kind of rough affection, that some of the butterflies with important reputations {the monarch was one) had the males knocking down their ladyfriends and raping them.

Julian Pettifer, who introduces this series, has been in many countries to gather his material. He is well suited to drawing out his scientific informants, being ready to step forward to keep the flow going, but quite as ready to remain quiet and retiring if his subject, like Dr

Rothschild. is someone gusty to the point of garrulity. Pettifer is not a Bellamy but he brings the message just the same. It is. of course, doing a grave disservice to any drama serial to miss an episode or two. although some serials will survive the treatment fairly cheerfully. “Spoils of War" (One) doesn't seem to be one of them.

This serial w r as a good idea, and perhaps it even had a good title, but it has never grasped the viewer by the lapels. This may, in itself, be the reason that episodes tend to get missed; then the slackening of interest is fed all the more.

Without the visuals, “Spoils of War” sounds like a radio serial of 30 years ago — an “Archers” without the real interest of the Ambridge people. Things are certainly happening in "Spoils of War” which are appropriate to the stated year, so the period is true enough; but the problems, huge though they are, have an air of inconsequence.

The class differences between the two families are still there, and everyone knows that they will remain that way forever even if the two fathers do look terribly comfortable together; so nothing can possibly be developed in this direction. The other main theme — that of immediate post-war Anglo-German relations — would have been a gripping idea at the time being portrayed, but hardly seems to matter much in the 1980 s. What is left, then, is oldlooking cars, marriage problems. unwelcome pregnancies, and Britain’s faltering years. Anyone for a soap opera about love, hate, babies, and doctors?