Horror at Mogadishu

Press, 29 October 1981, Page 19

Horror at Mogadishu

[ Review ,q

Douglas McKenzie

What with “The Horror at 37.000 ft" on Monday and “Hijack to Mogadishu” in the “Escape” series on Tuesday, the air is getting far too close. It is a matter of taste, of course, but the black magic story on Monday seemed a lot of unnecessary rubbish compared with the actual horror of the hijack event of four years ago. The only thing that might have been disturbing was the fact that the real-life affair was more entertaining than a story written as entertainment. Mogadishu is not'the first hijack and hostage sequence to go on film; they have the common factor of providing horror, tension, pain and retribution in more or less equal amounts. The more recent falling off in hijackings seems to point to a • victory for the psychologists as much as the security people — that, and the certainty for the hijackers that not only will their demands not be met but that their goose is well and truly cooked. As the years go by the hijack events will continue to be drawn on for re-enact-ment,- and they will be reworked as variations in their own right; in the meantime the originals are too ■■recent for comfortable dramatisation. It is too much as though the sinking of the Lusitania were being given in glorious colour as promptly as, say, 1919. . All this goes to show that no matter how hard someone tries to present something really gripping on the screen there will always be someone else trying to complain about it. A talented comic who is perfectly comfortable began on One on Tuesday. He is Rowan Atkinson of the rub-, ber lips and almost every

other part' of his facial structure. In the very title of his show Atkinson “presents canned laughter.” This is what he. does; so that the canned laughter comes in waves when he is doing something as overwhelmingly unhumorous as running down the street in a silly way. Therefore Mr Atkinson invites the real laugh for scoffing at the way other comics go for laughs. He is a sophisticated one. this; He pronounces French with great artistry while acting as though he has never heard of the tongue. Where was the sex, the songs, the dancing? Mr Atkinson got away without any of these. Any singing and dancing he did were in parody of himself. It was an unusual performance; perhaps the DickEmerys and Benny Hills will never look quite the same again. Rowan Atkinson is grossly funny but he does require some close attention. The viewer has to remember that he is ' being deliberately confused, rather than advised, by the canned laughter. With his antics Mr Atkinson has physically the biggest tongue in the business and metaphorically the biggest cheek. This is an entirely fresh approach to TV humour and is verbal as much as visual; the change will be worth following.