MASH for tea

Press, 20 November 1987, Page 19

MASH for tea

Many people who are overweight and don’t want to face the fact that it is because they eat too much, delude themselves. They “forget” all those little extras between and around meals.

Watching the box is much the same. When asked, people underestimate how much they watch and overestimate the hours they spent watching wholesome programmes like "Oiir World.”

If you are honest with yourself about a week’s worth of square eyeballing, scrupulously so with no cheating, you could well experience a mild shock. • For me, it came with the realisation that I spend more hours per week watching “M*A*S*H” than anything else, and this for the fourth and in some cases the fifth time. At 6 p.m. it is very nearly the perfect way to bridge the teatime gap between the day and the evening, and it also sets a mood optimistic enough to be an armour against the 6.30 News. Why? What is so special about “M*A*S*H,” that at least for one person it can last so long and be sustained through so many repeats? After all, it is only a sitcom and it is hard to imagine any of the current crop of sitcoms standing even one

repeat In 10 years time, something like “All in the Family”- or “Late. Expectations” will look; like black-and-white < programmes do now. But “M*A*S*H” seems timeless.

This is a strange feffect for a series which is unremittingly sexist and anti-establishment and a vehicle for sick humour. The main characters are conceited and opinionated. Some of them verge on neurosis with their obsessions, and others are near-alcohpllcs. At times, they all appear to be very cruel to-one another.

None of this is relevant “M*A*S*H” works because everyone in it is essentially kind, gbodhearted and good-hum-oured. There is a sense in which the opening credits encapsulate the programme as few other credits do. The 4077 run up the hill to the helicopters full of incoming' wounded. Hawkeye and B.J. are there wearing their unconventional clothes, but the looks they give as they see the wounded are of the entirely concerned and competently professional. All the personnel of the 4077 are good at what they do and yet all of them are unconventional. Even career officer Hotlips Houlahan weakens in the face of her own

sexuality and! Hawkeye’s essential rightness. Even Radar Is brilliant in being the perfect company clerk and the imperfect person. Even Klinger tould not be more completely sane as he pursues his chosen path of madness. There is something deeply satisfying about people who are good enough at what they do to buck the insecure inadequacies of bureaucracy. None is better at this than Hawkeye and B.J. who are so adept that any of the horrors of war, or peace, can be turned into a joke. They use their, humour as well as they wield their surgeons’ scalpels. The joke is even on themselves as they are prepared to work as many hours as it takes to save lives.

Winchester is the perfect foil for them, all that they are not and would never want to be. And yet in the end he is as goodhumoured and humanitarian as they are. In the midst of all this, Colonel Potter, a lifetime career soldier, is prepared to back them. He keeps them in line but also manages to defend their splendid vigour.

In the end then, “M*A*S*H” succeeds because it has no stereotypes. It surprises. Its people are unconventional, but are barely even consistent in their uncon-

Ken Strongman

ON TELEVISION

ventionality. All that can be counted on is good humour and concern for others. Which Is why when the series begins for what could be the sixth time in my life I’ll be watching again with as much genuine pleasure as on the first. Like the best of old friends, it is always a pleasure to see Hawkeye and company, and yet they continue to surprise. Tailpiece. A correspondent from Blenheim took me to task for a negative review of “The Marching Girls," saying that the same criticisms could have been levelled at “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.” She is right, and “The Marching Girls" is potentially good — it just needs' to be leavened by the humour of “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.”