‘Fair Go’ puts entertainment before public service

Press, 18 March 1982, Page 19

‘Fair Go’ puts entertainment before public service

Review

Douglas McKenzie

The retail Ombudsman of the air — ‘ Fair Go” — was on the investigative trail on Tuesday on One, its bloodhounds slipped from the kennels and baying in l all directions. In order to save time and problems of presentation the programme is mainly reportorial rather than investigatory and this allows a fair amount of selectivity; and once this starts it must be almost irresistible for the production to make a hero of itself. It is hard to see what other result could come out; it?would be a strange Robin Hood programme which largely had near misses and drawn blanks to record. "Fair Go" is therefore'entertainment before it is the public service it would like to suggest. This position does

not seem to alter by the occasional very good story the programme gets on to. It was a light night this week. None of the persons complained of actually appeared in the studio but, of course, this may only represent a change of production policy. Hugo Manson and newlyarrived Islay Benge are particularly good at simulating recorded conversations, and their skill in this may be the reason or excuse that the real thing is forgone. With the huge number of suggested items the programme says it gets it. is hard to understand why it bothered about, a piece concerning the difficulty of tracking down unusual footwear sizes in the shops. It would have been thought that it was only necessary to

go to a good shop for the answer: if you don’t ask the question in the right place you’ll never get the right information.

Some of the investigations of “Fair Go” suggest that an initial inquiry at the trade association or the Consumer Institute would have cleared the whole thing up. But of course this’would no( lead to good TV. It’s still a question of whether it leads to good TV otherwise.

Why do the studio audience go along to clap, and what . are they clapping about? Is this what they associate with glamour in Wellington, or Auckland, or wherever it is?

The Grammy awards showed for 90 minutes on Two. Of course, the recording industry is a tremendous thing, and the world without

it can no longer be imagined. What a self-ingesting spectacle the award-presenting festival is, though. It is clearly a celebration by the industry of the industry for the industry. Mostly, for ordinary mortals, it is’a time for tip-toeing away and leaving them to it. Still, everyone likes records; so the victory speeches go on: consummate modesty, tears arrested, references to his wife (“I love you"), his grandchildren (if he is old enough), the whole audience ("I love you all”), bear hugs, kisses, and waves.

It is quite affecting. Perhaps it even makes the records sound better, too. Who knows?

Everyone is beautifully dressed, even if they would probably be arrested for bi-

zarrerie anywhere outside Los Angeles. Many of the men are wearing the starched shirts and wing collars of the 19305.

With their dinner jackets some are wearing blue ties (shudder) and even white ties — oh. savages! Grammy, Emmy, Oscar; what does’ that leave? "Miss World”? The Timaru sound shell?