Snoke-corter no asset to a political career

Press, 23 September 1987, Page 19

Snoke-corter no asset to a political career

Poor old Charles Seymour, of "First Among Equals? fame, isn’t very good at picking wives. His first wife, after years of neglect, ran off with a Tory party official and Charles’s Holbein; on Saturday night his new wife, besides presenting him with a son of dubious origin, turned out to be a snoke-corter. Or do I mean coke-snorter? No, I think I mean snokecorter. Anyway, whatever it is that she corts or snokes, she is no asset to a political career and has been bundled out of his front door. This political soap is engrossing viewing for anyone who likes politics; less engrossing for anyone who likes soap, since there is little of the latter to be observed. What is to be observed is an excellent performance by Anita Carey as Joyce Gould, wife of wishy-washy Labour M.P. Raymond Gould, whomanages in a very English way to enjoy the sins of the flesh without actually enjoying them. He has now gone back to Joyce and rejected a High Court judgeship in order

to pursue his political career. This may not have been a wise move. It is wellknown that all English High Court judges are addicted to being beaten by ladies in suspenders, black stockings and thigh boots, and Raymond looks just the man to have enjoyed this sort of thing. However, we have to z assume that Mr ' Jeffery Archer knows what is best

for his characters. The Falklands must be coming up any minute now, and my prediction is that Simon Kerslake, now Minister of Defence, will fall at the head of his troops at the Battle of Goose Green, leaving his widow to enjoy an illicit affair with Andrew Fraser. Well, that is how I would write it if I was Mr Archer.

“Alas Smith and Jones,” after a brilliant first episode the previous Saturday, was disappointing last Saturday night There was nothing to equal the superb sketch the week before about the C.D. player with “graphics equaliser.” Nor was the face-to-face dialogue very funny.

Am I alone in finding these somewhat queasi-ness-inducing from a purely visual point of view? The lads appear not to sit directly opposite each other, and so the eyeballs swivel round trying to establish their placement. If this is deliberate than it is unnecessary.

Still, all that last Saturday night’s show proved

was that in a sketch series, not all shows, if I can put it in a rather muddled way, are as good as each of them. Smith and Jones are nonetheless a very droll "comedy duo," to employ a phrase much in vogue. “Girls on Top,” the new all-girl sitcom, didn’t do much to advance the art of feminist comedy. Dawn French is quite engaging, and Joan Greenwood, who raised overacting to an art form back in the forties, was delightful. Tracey Ullmann, who is making overacting something to be widely avoided in the eighties, was awful. Jennifer Saunders, essaying the not very difficult task of playing a boring person, achieved a not very notable success. But if I was the producer I would have made Ruby Wax change her name by deed poll. I mean, Ruby Wax, really! She might as well call herself Ruby Furniture Polish or Ruby With Ammonia.

A trivial criticism, do I hear you cry? But then, if men can’t make trivial criticisms about female comedy, who is going to?