MEDIA LIST
l FRIDAY 19
o Theroc (C4) 1 1.3(lpm—l .3()am. Stuck in a dreary. workaday existence. Themroc breaks free and smashes all the rules of polite society. Inventive cinema ofthe absurd. and the first film to receive the special C4 warning symbol suggesting that it might be particularly violent or sexually exphcn.1972.
SATURDAY 20 5
0 Aliens (Scottish) Midnight—12.30am. A behind-the-scenes look at the making ofthe excellent James Cameron sequel to Alien.
SUNDAY 21
o Fitties Features (C4) 5. 15—6pm. (‘oinciding with a season of films on r (‘4. a look at women in the film industry of the Fifties (See also M an (1y ) .
0 Mandy (C4) 1(l.55pm—12.4()am.
I D
Sincere, honest drama ofthe strains facing a middle-class couple whose daughter is born deaf and dumb. Admirable performances from Mandy Miller. Jack Hawkins and Phyllis Calvert. sensitive direction
from Alexander Mackendrick. 1952
WEDNESDAY 24
o Manpower (C4) 2.35—4.30pm. ' Vigorous Hollywood melodrama, an
oddly cast triangular affair involving
Marlene Dietrich. George Raft and
Edward G. Robinson. Set against the work ofa California electrical company the film gains charge from the on-set tension that existed
: betweenthe male stars. 1941
i o The Gift Horse (C4) 2.35—4.25pm.
The Trevor Howard season continues with this typical stiff-upper-lip wartime tale ofan American lease-lend destroyer. 1952
FRIDAY 26
‘ O The Vulture (C4) 11.3(lpm—l . 10am.
Controversial Israeli film focusing on a reserve officer who returns from the Front burdened with the guilt
FATHER TIME
*1 .i 1". ' W
‘The drum is the second instrument. First is the human voice then came the drum. And you could really talk on it, its .j a spiritual instrument'. Time keeper extraordinary. Art Blakey (pictured with ; his two year-old daughter) is one of the giants at modern jazz, the music that grew into and through be-bop in the late Forties and Fifties. At 68 and still leading his Jazz Messengers on a gruelling schedule round the world, he
is the tasclnatlng subject at an hour long Central TV programmeto be
broadcast on Scottish Television on
i Sun 21 Oct at 10.55pm. Blakey has
played with everyone at the top level of
26 TheiLiist 19 Sept — 2 Oct
; M
’ I) ' jazz and among those appearing in the lilm are Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Golson,
Horace Silver, Wynton Marsalis and
Wayne Shorter. A lot or the film was
shot in and around last year’s Camden Jazz Festival and includes a performance of the Messengers augmented by members of Courtney Pine’s Jazz Warriors. The camera takes in a crowded drum clinic and some jazz dance pieces, but what is revealed is the tireless love at Blakey for creative, improvised music and his enthusiasm as an educator. Stay young in his company. (Norman Chalmers)
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engendered by his survival at the expense ofso many others’ lives. 1981
SATURDAY 27
0 Blue Thunder (BBCI) Grandly entertaining old-fashioned thriller with Roy Scheider as a veteran pilot with police surveillance. suspecting misdeeds in high places. Exciting aerial action scenes. 1982
MONDAY 29
0 Breakfast Time (BBCI)6.5()am. With the Party Conference season upon us, Frank Bough and Co present a revamped, newsier digest ofearly morning tv.
MEETI—
o The History of Psychiatry (C4) John Sessions. alternative stand-up comedian, presents a series of encounters with madness throughout the ages as part of a curtain raiser to Mind’s Eye — a major series of programmes aiming to demystify mental illness.
W i
0 Techno Food —The Edible Dream (C4) 8—9pm. Latest in the Equinox series follows the development of a new savoury snack from drawing board to production line.
RADIO FESTIVAL
Professor Alastair Hetherington.
Controller BBC Scotland. opened the 1986 Radio Festival at Glasgow University last week with a
, discussion on The Peacock Inquiry.
He admitted that the committee. of which he was a member. had devoted only part ofone day to the question of radio. Peter Fiddick. The Guardian‘s Media Editor. giving the closing summary the following day. didn‘t overlook the fact that even after the first day the Festival had already spent more time considering radio than the Peacock Committee.
Professor Hetherington also admitted that some of the committee‘s proposals had been ill-conceived. ill-considered and were even contradictory. He disagreed with its proposal to sell off Radios 1 and 2 to the private sector. a suggestion Brian Wenham. Managing Director BBC Radio. later described as a ‘fraud‘, with its inference ofcutting Radios land 2 to make space for INR. He calculated that privatising these frequencies would save only £2 per annum on the licence fee (assuming the BBC still covered music and sport).
With the hopes ofCommunity Radio recently crushed by the Home Office decision to abandon the experiment. its supporters clamoured for their case to be answered. Malcolm Rifkind. Secretary of State for Scotland, promised no more than ‘ventilation'
of the issue in the forthcoming Government Green Paper on Radio, and the Black Londoners Action Committee, who took this (and every other opportunity) , to ask when there was going to be media ‘ representation which reflected the multi-ethnic reality in this country, received a similar answer.
Malcolm Rifkind‘s speech addressed the question ‘What Media Bias?’ and he maintained there was a lot of ‘woolly thinking‘ and spurious logic (logic being the art of going wrong with confidence), amongst
those in broadcasting about the nature ofbias. He claimed that there was always a bias against the government of the day and put the view that those involved in ‘news
7 creation‘ frequently neglected to fully investigate groups to whom they gave coverage. By failing to establish how many people they represented, they gave the public misleading information or an exaggerated view. He refused to be drawn on the issue of how the government handled its own access to the media.
Smaller working sessions covered a number ofissues including Capital Radio‘s split-frequency experiment, which had been granted ten hours a week for a limited period by the Home Office and the IBA; the problems faced by Frances Line, Head of Music Department BBC Radio 2. dealing with an audience which was said to cover ‘from nought to dead‘. and a highly entertaining guide to making elementary radio commercials. Required and impromptu teamwork to devise a commercial produced some creative results including a punch line for the hangover-curing properties of Perrier, which promised to ‘reach the parts you reached last night.‘
In the post-Peacock/pre-Green Paper interim it was an impressive, articulate and committed gathering.
RADID LISTING
A wide range of ideas are explored in drama this fortnight. Syrup oi Figs by Jo Heaton, a former actress with
at the Old Vic, is repeated. R4 Sat 27. 2pm. Set in a girls convent school, it investigates the consequences of religious extremism to a tragic and compelling conclusion.
Charles Gray and Yvonne Bryeeland lead the cast in Pirandello's Six Characters In Search Of An Author. R4 Sun 21 , 2.30pm, in which six author-abandoned characters interrupt a play rehearsal and The Compromise by Istvan Ebrsi makes three individuals come to terms for themselves with the dilemma of political censorship in Hungary. Kathryn Atwood reads a sad monologue by Kilys Rose I Can
'Sing, Dance, Rollerslrate (or whatever it takes to raise the money for an abortion). R3 Fri 26, 10.45am.
And Radio 3 gives ‘live‘ coverage of Wagner's Ring Cycle, sung by the WWelsh National Opera at the Royal Opera House. Covent Garden, beginning Thurs 25, 7.30pm.
Olivier‘s National Theatre Company