An evening of masquerades

Press, 8 February 1985, Page 13

An evening of masquerades

Review

Ken Strongman

Last Sunday evening was dominated by advertisements masquerading as documentaries. They presented a bewildering burden of information, not onetenth of which will be remembered. It began with “A Shed Will be Necessary," which purported to be a history of New Zealand military aviation, but seemed more like a seriousminded puff for the R.N.Z.A.F. museum at* Wigram. Apart from some nice snippets of early film (amazing that those bits of wood and string could loop and loop without tying themselves into aerial cats’ cradles), the best thing about this programme was its title. It was almost unrelievedly factual and serious, achieving authenticity by an unenviable heaviness of touch. Even the presenter, Dougal Stevenson, stood more solidly four-square than usual. “A Shed Will be Necessary” was a lumbering Sunderland flying boat of a documentary and left two thoughts wallowing behind it. First, modern military aircraft, even those belong-, ing to R.N.Z.A.F., are awesomely frightening. Second, a firm expectation that at any second a collector will be at the door, box rattling on behalf of the Wigram museum.

By contrast with all this weight, “The Pint” had a superb lightness of style and a delightfully witty narration by William Rushton. It managed to force several hundred years of brewing history into the first couple

of minutes and then peppered and salted the viewer with fascinatingly useless information about pins and firkins, shire horses, and the maltster’s art. It was a charming 20 minutes, made a complex process seem simple, and set up a heart-rending nostalgis for proper pubs. "China in Change” promised much; the possibility of a thorough documentary about China with the narrational guidance of Glenda Jackson, her superb deep, clear voice dripping with intelligence and social concern. It had its moments, but was actually concerned to proseltyise a rather outdated form of the women’s movement and mental health. It will be remembered for showing more examples of breastfeeding per minute than any programme in the previous history of television. It is hard to know what exactly to think about this programme. It was made almost entirely by women, but was it almost entirely for women? Even with the most sympathetic will in the world, it seemed a bit much. Some parts were so didactic that matters female and Chinese became very nearly as serious as the R.N.Z.A.F. Again, it could have done with a bit more lightness of touch.

Some terrifying statistics were embraced. In 1982, there were 1080 million people in China. If they do not take care, they will be producing 10 million babies a year by the turn of the century, whilst having only 7 per cent of the world’s arable land. But here’s the most frightening of all — China contains one-quarter of the world’s women and there is an all-China women’s federation. One is prompted to sit quietly, eyes downcast.

However, “China in Change” did a thorough, if laboured, job of explaining the recent Chinese one-child family system. Relatively large advantages accrue to those couples who agree to limit their progeny to one. Indeed, there is strong social pressure so to do from neighbourhood groups. Thus the Chinese are attempting to solve a vast quantity problem by going hard for quality. There is some very tough thinking needed here, which even simplistic pop psychologising from the documentary team about mother/child bonding did not hinder. Finally, on something entirely different, even though having a name which hinted that it might involve more than just running, the Wang marathon was rather disappointing. The commentators were pushed. Ms Roe summed it up by saying that “in retrospect the race was fairly predictable.” Only “fairly?” And Mr Quax said that “secondly he was second,” which is better than “lastly, he was last,” I suppose.