MEDIA LIST
MEDIA
The List guide to what’s best on the box over the next fortnight.
FRIDAY 10
I Clean Slate (BBCZ) 5—5.3opm. The Beeb‘s flagship education programme returns to look at State-provided nursery education in France and the astonishing case of the News ofthe World reporter who finally passed his English ‘A' Level this summer.
I Laurel and Hardy’s Laughing ’20s ( BBCZ) 6—7.3(lpm. A compilation of late 1920s work. Genius.
I Public Eye- Pollution and Petrol ( BBCZ) 8—8.30pm. is there such a thing as a ‘green‘ car. considering that lead-free petrol is far from ‘clean"? And can we reduce our pollution level. or only stop it from getting any higher?
IATime lorBemembrance (C4) 8—9pm. Just before the deluge oftelevised Remembrance Day services at the weekend. a look at why our attitude to war changed after World War 1. and it suddenly became of prime importance to commemorate it solemnly year after year. I Great Journeys (BBCz) 9.3o—io.3opm. A photographer travels down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. the top secret supply link between North and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. and. at one time. Russian Roulette with American bombs for any driver who dared it.
I Whose Line is it Anyway? (C4)
10.30—1 1pm. The first of seventeen new improvisational shows. with resident host Clive Anderson. and the over-exposed John Sessions returning for around half the shows.
SATURDAY 11 ;
I The Commons Touch ( C4) 7—8pm. Thatcher. Kinnock and a very lovely host of MPs from Geoffrey Howe to Denis Skinner reveal how they‘re going to cope with TV cameras in the Commons. Personally. I think they should fly Wes (Nightmare on Elm Street) Craven in to put on the finishing touches.
I Ashkenazy— Back in the USSR ( BBCZ) 7—9. 15pm. Twenty-six years after leaving the USSR. one of the world's most gifted pianists returned to conduct two pieces by the Royal Philharmonic in Moscow. A BBC Scotland team went with him.
I 4P|ay— Chains oi Love (C4) 9—10pm. Once you've got over retching at the awful title for this series ofa dozen plays. you can get down to the serious business of deciding whether you actually want to watch a play examining the issues raised at a women-only party thrown to sell a case full of marital aids.
I The Session (C4) 10.20—1 1.25pm. Not more John bloody Sessions! Oh. no. i take that back. it‘s actually a second series of the RTE show in which diverse musicians get together for a crack and a jam. Tonight — Liststar Lyle Lovett hangs out withJohn Prine.
SUNDAY 12 ‘
I Stars in a Dark Night (C4) 2—3.30pm. An imaginative fantasy/documentary for Remembrance Sunday on the lives of lvor Novello, Herbert Howells and Ivor Gurney, based. by director Bryan Izzard.
on the discovery that the three were organ scholars at Gloucester Cathedral in 1905 and were each affected by World War 1 in vtry different ways.
I The Clothes Show (BBCI )5. 15—5.4(ipm. Obviously. excitement is mounting over televised proceedings in the Commons. as here‘s a prog on how Ml’s maychange their style. There will. iwager. be plenty of Paul Smith and Gaultier on the show. but precious little about freebie Westland and BP overalls.
I Royal Mission (BBCI ) 5.40—6.1(lpm. An everyday story of Royal folk. Chuck and Di visit lndonesia and llong Kong for the first time together. Chuck insistson visiting a rain forest project. Martyn‘s fawning commentary covers up Di's intense irritation.
I Equinox (C4) 7—8pm. A film crew follows a SWAT team on their daily routine. Being based in Miami. dubbed a ‘battlezone‘ by George Bush. this particular team sees quite a bit ofaction. I The Media Show (C4) 8—9pm. The secret of American comedies like Cheers. Roseanne and The Golden Girls is their Script Factories. which scriptwriters Lawrence Marks and Maurice Gran
(Snakes and Ladders. Birds 0 f a Feather) are now planning to bring over here.
I Spitting image (Scottish) l().()5—1().35pm. Back again for another series. the programme which. while floundering dangerously in the script department. still has a tremendous power in moulding public opinion ofthe personalities in the Cabinet.
I The Bay Boy(BBC2)10.15—11.55pm. Keifer Sutherland‘s 1984 film debut. as a 16-year-old who can‘t reconcile his sexual desires with the his parents' insistence that he becomes a priest. Set in Nova Scotia in 1937.
I The Education Debate (Scottish) 11.35pm—12.30am. Parents and teachers debate with politicians about optingout and other aspects of the Government‘s education policy.
MONDAY 13
I Talk of the 80$(BBC1)4.30—5pm. repeated midnight—12.30am. The Church of England's great iconoclast. The Bishop of Durham. is tonight‘s guest. Go get ‘em. Bish!
I Behind the Beat (BBCZ) 6.20—6.5(lpm.
, IN THEIR STRIDE
. at Though the much-maligned Emma Freud has replaced her as anchor at ‘The Media Show’, Muriel Gray has not hung up hertelevlsual spurs. Forthe last few months, she has been busy planning a new series with the Scottish-based Skyline company and her own Gallus Besom production company. In ‘Walkie Talkie’ (starting on Fri 17 at 8.30pm, C4), she turns the exhausted interview situation to the advantage oiihe interviewees, talking to her guests on their favourite rambles, where they are accustomed to being alone with their thoughts.
The iormat is inevitably a hit-and-miss atlair, but it leads to some delicious moments, such as Norman Tebbit’s admission, when asked it he believed in God, that he ‘hadn‘i really thought about it much’.
The first guest quizzed by Muriel is as diametrically opposed to ‘Upwardly
Mobile’ Norman as one could get: Arthur Scargill, who chose to meander around Worsboroughdale, near Barnsley. The valley J.B. Priestley described as the most beautilul in England, it's one that Scargill has known all his lite, and a place he would often visit in the days oi the Miners’ Strike.
Future interviewees include Michael Clark (who chose the banks of Loch Lomond), Terence Conran (who took advantage of the invitation by choosing the King’s Road, where he opened his ilrst Habitat shop), Glenda Jackson (the South Bank— and why not?), Bianca Jagger, Bruce Oldlleld, Charlotte Rampling, Eric Idle, scientist James Lovelock and former freestyle skiing champion Mike Nemesvary. But
what we want to know is where top
reporter Kate Adie has picked her patch
- Beirut? (Alastair Mabbott)
Long-overdue look at the work of lsaac llayes. best known for his soundtrack to Shaft.
I Portrait ( BBCZ) 7.3i)~~8pm. Ludovic Kennedy talks to Yasser Arafat. ()nly slightly less watchable than John tiumphries rapping with the Bish.
I Cracking Up (C4) 9— lilpm. first in a series of six unusual biographical documentaries on people who influenced. or were influenced by. the l‘rench and Russian revolutions. Tonight's subject. Goya. will be followed in fttture weeksby the caricaturist Gillray. Mary Wollstonecraft. Welsh poet lolo Morganwg. Sylvia Pankhurst and hardline Stalinist and also a Welsh poet. TIi Nicholas.
I The Unapproachable ( BBCZ)
9— 10.30pm. The first British showing for the 1982 movie about an ageing reclusive movie star whose life is changed when a young man appears at her door covered in blood and asks to use the phone.
I Panorama (BBCI ) (mo—to. lflpm. The massacre at a nationalist demonstration in Tbilisi. Georgia in April setperestmika back a considerable distance. This two-part Panorama investigates the events of that day in a co—productiou which will be shown on Georgian TV.
TUESDAY 14
I Wood Works with Blizzard ( B BCZ) 2.4(i—3pm. Craftsman Richard Blizzard begins a new series on making simple pieces of furniture. with tips on construction techniques.
I lpso Fact0(BB(‘1)435—Spm.A new children's documentary series in which seven young reporters each examine an aspect ofconsumerism that particularly bothers them. llea-veeeeel
I images (C4) &-8.3(ipm. The first ofsix documentaries on the early days of photography.
I Bed Dwari ( BBCB) i)—‘)_3()pm. A new series of the inexplicably popttlar comedy series. Guests in the weeks ahead include Koo Stark.
I WarWiihout FlagS(Scottish)
10.35—1 1.35pm. The story of how the Nazi occupation of Norway was resisted in part — from Shetland.
WEDNESDAY 15
I The Wombles(Seottish)4.ll5-4.15pm. Those fabulous fttrry symbols of a cleaner Britain have seemingly been lured over to Scottish by bigger paycheques. A true cult. Don‘t miss these repeats.
I Underihe Sun (BBCB) sliSwlupm. Crucial moments in the history ofthe young country of Namibia reconstructed by playwright David I.an. ISignaIS((‘4)9. lS-lllpm. in a programme marking 18 months since the passing of Clause Section 28 2‘). Signals has commissioned adventurous dance group DVS to create a work dealing with the fears behind the law. This isthc group‘s first TV presentation.
I Midweek Scotsport Special (Scottish) lt).35pm—12.35am. With a place in the World Cup Finals depending on a single point. Scotland face Norway at llampden.
The List 10— 23 November 1989 69