Rubbing our noses in it

Press, 4 November 1983, Page 11

Rubbing our noses in it

“Eh opp, Mam’s caught ’er ’and in t’mangle.” And ’ere we are in t’slooms o’ Manchester as Howard Springs’ “Fame is the Spur” has begun. Its scheduling now is probably the first step on the Government’s road to next February’s end to the freeze. We are being shown that some time, somewhere, there are people worse off than ourselves.

In a triumph of programming, “Fame is the Spur” exactly precedes “Brass” on a Monday evening. Since the accents and the general appearances are the same, one is constantly waiting for the joke. And since “Spur” is simply “Coronation Street” in the 1870 s, it looks funny. '

Everything is brown and grey, relieved only by the occasional flicker from a miserable fire. All conversation, except that of the young, innocent, clean-cut men on whom the story centres, is punctuated by the rasp of bronchitis. This is life in its elementals, as the viewer has his or her nose ground into the grinding poverty. The virginal purity of the

[ Review I Ken Strongman 1

tight-collared heroes is as stereotyped as everything else. “Tell, me, wass a bastard?”; this from a 16-year-old. Shock, horror. “Go’s bin tawkin’ to yer? It’s a sort of swear word son ...” Meanwhile, his mother’s face is turned to the wall in shame as she sees all hope and ambition for her lad disappearing in a puff of immorality.

Surrounded by whippets and rats, will these young old working-class boys lift themselves from the mire or not? Will they ever see owt but grimy roofs? All ills are cured with a “coop o’ tay” as they peer through the perennial gloom at their mothers, who are washing and cleaning. There are seven episodes remaining for the lads to close their mouths and stop wringing their caps as they dream of

the better world of the middle classes. But will the cottage hospital be blown up with silent explosive or not? Or is that “Brass”?

Meanwhile at a different time and place but to some extent on a similar range of topics, the nicely conceived and well presented “Viewfinder” had ended. 5.30 is not a good time; it is difficult to work out whether this will have allowed it to reach its target audience or not — school leavers and those in their first unemployment It is an almost impossible time to watch.

Anyway, the bulk of the final programme was both well constructed and useful. It showed the District Court through the eyes of one who had been charged there for the first time. This made the first segment of the programme seem out of place. It consisted of bits of film about THE TOUR, but it was clearly biased pro-anti-tour-protest. ft gave an odd feeling because it seemed to be aimed at promoting the idea of group power among young people. Even if this was not the

aim, it was certainly the impression.

Anyway, back to the court This was an informative analysis and assuming that it was correct showed some aspects of the proceedings to be questionable. The duty solicitor asked the young client (still, presumably, innocent until proven guilty) personal questions in a public room and then issued curt instructions rather than courteous suggestions. Then, suddenly, her language changed to call the Judge “Sir.” In fact, much of the language seems to be arcane and silly. “You will be remanded at large.” What on earth would this mean to a young naive person? And such statements are evidently made in a surprisingly noisy courtroom in which there is much coming and going. Why should people) put up with this? “Viewfinder’s” final programme clearly had an effect on at least one viewer, who ended up both informed and annoyed. One can only hope that it does reach its target audience, since in these days there may be no fame to spur them.