Pauahful larnching of New Year

Press, 7 January 1983, Page 9

Pauahful larnching of New Year

F Review!

Ken Strongman

Taking a gentle approach to 1983, so far the few new programmes have been buried like sixpences among the pudding-like repeats. Presumably, they are being spread out’ in an attempt to make them go further. It is a strategy which works no better with television than it does with food or paint. One of the new series is “Speakeasy." making New Zealand the latest nation to catch Parkinson's disease. It strikes three or four people at once and its main symptom is to force them to sit around speaking of very little at great length.

There have now been two of the first three trial programmes and my guess is that “Speakeasy” will return. Some of the “ guests were engaging and interesting. There are some rough edges though. Either the camera or the chairs should be posi-

tioned differently. It is discourteous to send studio guests home with stiff necks. lan Johnstone's questions could be crisper and put in such a way as not to invite variations on how marvellous his guests are and how well they are doing given a difficult start in life. Also, he should have his thumbs shortened. Every few seconds they fill the screen, as intrusive as Barbara Streisand's nose. Before the full series begins. if it does, the more tedious bits should be excised, a good start being never again to interview Howard Morrison. Also, some nonsense could go. In the first programme, Sir Michael Fowler, although charming, said: “Every New Zealander goes to Europe at some stage in life." Tell it to those who live in Mangere. "Speakeasy" is worth per-

severing with; it is a good idea and could even be socially useful. The new "Sea Power" series from 8.8. C. is put together (presumably unwittingly) in a way reminiscent of Monty Python. As the scene shifted from old battleships to Lord Hill-Norton standing four-square between a brace of phallic twelveinches, one expected the big foot to come down and squash everything. Or even Kenny Everett to prance in and spray both ship and Lord with instant string.

Hill-Norton's voice could not be better for the job; it makes Princess Ann sound like Sid Snot. He can punch out words like "pauah" so that they vibrate with patriotic fervour. He has the blast of one of his own big guns as he talks of ships being "larnched." The series seems to be a way of keeping British morale' afloat. It is easy enough to go along with this and become entwined in the impressive technical developments and burgeoning paraphernalia. Then there comes a sudden realisation of what it is all for — killing people at long range more effectively. Yet again, it is the "Boy's Own" approach. HillWhatsit even described the sailors as "Jolly Jacks." Even if you enjoy seeing the emergence of Britain's one-time supremacy at sea. questions remain.’ It was

said, for example, that: "Every admiral dreamt of one particular manoeuvre and practised it endlessly." Did he. indeed? Also, one could not help but wonder if the occasional ship was propelled by the "mystical awe" that our Lord H-N kept mentioning. On a slightly different matter. TVNZ has something to answer for in its way of seeing in the New Year. Certainly, the lone, wailing piper braced by several drams to the battlements can be quietly pilloried. However. he must be preferable to a three-minute miscellany of disjointed film-clips, including what looked like the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb. All thoughts of "Auld Lang Syne" were left on their bewildered knees in 1982, reaching out for a 1983 which had already begun. Not a good larnching