‘Outsider’ slow and dreary

Press, 18 May 1984, Page 11

‘Outsider’ slow and dreary

[Review]

Ken Strongman

Imagine a fulsome, unctuous voice. “Aah, coffee, you’d like coffee, wouldn’t you.” “The Sibelius second, remember?” “Of course.” With such words, and lingering, loving shots of the minutiae of life such as door handles and pipe-bowls, Yorkshire Television, which usually knows better, has thrust us into “The Outsider.”

Yet again, the posh, plumvoiced, sneaky, conniving middle classes are pitted against gruff salts of the earth who cannot help but do a fair day’s toil for a fair day’s pay. Without this constant class battle, British television might one day disappear up its own tubes. In “The Outsider” some of the workers wear brown duster coats — just in case we do not recognise them from their pinched appearance or shambling walks. Something is probably happening in this series; it is just a little difficult to see what. There is something or other about integrity, honour and skeletons in the cupboard of the “Messenger,” a local newspaper. And there are several sexual interplays from which, of course, integrity and honour are conspicuously lacking. How else would they be interesting? The newspaper is being edited by the outsider. Hidden tensions twang like elastic bands as he plucks the local sensibilities, encouraged by the newspaper’s new owner, up to her own devious game. In the usual way of Yorkshire’s concern with brass, a will is involved, with puzzling beneficiaries. Mistresses and their masters have started to give each other the needle as the squabbles begin over the money and possible peccadillos of the past. Tiffs abound and eyeballs seek out eyeballs like magnetised ball bearings. Ears are battered in crescendos of imprecations. It is probably all over bar the shouting. “The Outsider” at 10 p.m.

on Mondays contrasts beautifully with “The Yellow Rose” at 10 p.m. on Tuesdays. From simmering sex in England’s largest county we jump to a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do in America’s largest state. Life in Texas seems to be much the same as it was 100 years ago, which makes “The Yellow Rose” everything that one might expect.

Ex-Hutch, David Soul, without Starsky, looks a bit like he has forgotten his handbag. But as one of the ranch bosses he has the bootstrap integrity of a man who is scared of nothing other than the possibility that he might not be true to himself. However, Soul is as nothing compared with Sam Elliott as Chance — what a name. Chance is a marvellous character, dark, sombre and brooding, but with the smile of a demon. He has a black moustache which would be the envy of the most macho of walruses. He is so much his own man that, depending on gender, everybody either wants to be like him or simply wants him.

This is proper modern cowboy stuff as the Champion family try to sort out how they are related to each other. Men are men and fight, puzzle about money, career and life and jump on women at every opportunity. Women are women, make food, ride horses, sometimes run things, and are jumped on by men at every opportunity. All that is missing is John Wayne, but it is still way ahead of “The Outsider,” irksome though it is to put the panhandle before the door handle.