lVlLLUlM 1410 l
I Islamic Answers (C4) 10.45-1 1 .45pm. Muslims speak out about the image that their religion has in Britain. especially after the events of recent months. and voice their fears over what may result from misunderstandings among the Christian community.
FRIDAY 26
I highland Reactions ( BBCZ) 9.30-10.3()pm. ()n the tenth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York. Ian McKellen presents a documentary on gay rights. This programme won awards at both the Chicago and San Francisco International Film Festivals.
SATURDAY 27 ,
I Joan Rivers and Friends Salute Heidi Abromowitz (C4) 10.35—1 1.40pm. The shrewish Ms Rivers packs her sharp tongue into her cheek to join a cavalcade of stars at Caesar‘s Palace to celebrate ‘the world-famous tramp'.
SUNDY 28
I Scottish Books (Scottish)
midnight-12.30am. Morag flood reviews j
Spiris’ters A broad and Waterstone's manager Hazel Broadfoot looks at the increasing number of bookophiles.
MONDAY 29
I George Burns in Concert ((‘4) 7—8pm. The old master jokes and sings his way through an hour-long special.
I Superman II (Scottish) 8— 1(). 15pm. Significantly less tedious than the first film. and with fairly good fight scenes. Supes faces up to Terence Stamp and cronies and realises one of Lois Lane‘s ambitions. Rather lame Bank Holiday programming.
I Sex Mission (C4). Two men. frozen in an experiment. wake up 50 years later in a society peopled solely by women. Marvellous Polish SF comedy starring Jerzy Stuhr. one of Poland‘s favourite comedians.
I The Eleventh Hour: South African Chronicle (C4) 11.15pm—l .2()am. Twelve young film-makers from the Varan workshop in Johannesburg record the unseen day-to-day life of the place.
TUESDAY 30
I Prisoners of Childhood (C4) 9—10pm. Psychologist Dr Alice Miller has been making great waves with her concepts on how childhood is distorted by the needs and ambitions of parents. to have a lifelong effect on the individual. A series in search of the child within us starts with tonight's documentary. and continues with three 45-minute workshop dramas. I Cagney and Lacey (BBCI )9.3o-1 lpm. The original pilot from the early Eighties. with Loretta (Hotlips) Swit as Cagney. I The Late Shift (C4) 1 1 .5llpm—2. 15am. The two films this week are Billy Bragg and Michelle Shocked. recorded at the Dominion Theatre last November. and Rory Gallagher captured live in 1987.
WEDNESDAY 31
I Inside Story: Partners in Crime (BBCI) Two WPCs in Tottenham have had 900 calls since starting up the first domestic violence unit in a British police station. Inside Story followed them around.
I The Boys From the Blackstuff ( BBQ) Sure to be one of the hits of the week. the Beeb repeat the series that became the benchmark of TV drama in the Eighties.
I Cal (C4) 9— 10. 55pm. Moving adaptation of Bernard MacLaverty‘s novel. with the excellent newcomer John Lynch in the title role as the reluctant lRA activist who falls in love with the widow of a man whose death he was partly responsible for.
I Propaganda (C4) 10.55—midnight.
Propagandists in the 20th Century have found a devastating tool. This programme investigates how the moving image has become a powerful way ofinfluencing ideas.
I NB (Scottish) 1 1.35pm—12.05am. See Thurs 25.
I McVicar (Scottish) l2.2(¥—2.20am. Roger Daltrey stars in this British movie about the life and times of the famous Time Out columnist. Concentrates more on his little-known earlier years than the journalistic endeavours that really made him a household name.
RADIO
A recent survey into the purchasing habits of Britain's record buying public threw up a terrible. but true statistic: Nine out often CD collections are known to contain a copy of Dire Strait's Brothers in A rms LP. Those now cowering behind the sofa. however. can take comfort from the fact
POST-MODERN PUB-SINGING
Karaoke, for those who haven’t yet been swept up by the latest craze from Japan, is one way of relieving stress in an increasingly anonymous high-gear industrial society. After a hard day maximising efficiency and productivity, many Japanese businessman find their way to the nearest karaoke club to let it all hang out.
Hence the popularity of these places, where everyone is a star for three minutes (they said it would be fifteen, but in this fast-moving competitive world. . . ). The club-goers merely select the right backing-tape, pick up the microphone and give in to their dreams of stardom. it could be ‘My Way’ (a suspiciously popular one, demonstrated by Clive James in his first taste of the culture), ‘Somewhere Overthe Rainbow' or any number of classics.
Now, it seems, the karaoke bug is biting in this country as well, and there are those who would point out that it's nothing new— after all, people have been singing in drinking establishments since they were invented. Still, this post-modern pub singing is underpinned by fantasies of stardom that a singalong of ‘Down at
the Old Bull and Bush' after a few
that Dire Strait's headband-toting frontman Mark Knopfler actually considers the said platter to be a bit direr than your average platinum million-seller.
Radio ()ne's new series Classic Albums is an eight-part examination of rock's finest vinyl moments. in future weeks. Roger Scott will be talking about The Rolling Stones Beggar's Banquet with Keith Richards ( Keef to his friends). to the Beach Boys‘ Brian Wilson about Pet Sounds and to the Edge of U2 about The Joshua Tree.
The series kicks off. though. with Mr Knopfler. The release of Brothers in A rms in 1985 coincided neatly with the introduction of the domestic CD player. an occurance which has resulted in the album becoming the biggest selling LP ever in Britain. Mark. however. has not allowed such soaraway success to fog his views on the world and. as he saysthis coming Saturday ( Radio One. 20 May. 2pm) he now finds fault with almost every aspect of the album. ‘I would change it. I'd have better songs now. so I'd scrap most of these'. As for Walk of [.ife. thealbum‘s number one single. Mark again displays seer-like vision — ‘l heard it on the radio
tlagons neverwas.
Trust Channel 4, then, to jump right in at the start with ‘Kazuko's Karaoke Klub‘ (hosted by Kazuko Hohki, one half of cabaret duo Frank Chickens, and starting on Thursday 25 at 8.30pm) and turn it into a spectator sport. It's not really in the true spirit of karaoke, since viewers are entitled to goggle in on the proceedings without the opportunity or obligation to take part themselves; but it might, just might, be the biggest surprise bit since ‘The Gong Show' burned in on that part of the brain where the twin centres of sympathy and the need to see others humiliated collide, and constant stimulation is required by ‘Beadle’s About‘, ‘Floyd on TV' and ‘Club X'.
Again, it's a bit of a distortion, since in ‘KKK’ (brrr!) the participants are celebrities anyway, and don’t need the escape from mundane anonymity that is so essential a part of the experience. In the first programme, for instance, we get to see George Wendt (Norm from ‘Cheers') and Spike Milligan giving it a shot. However, the lower brain‘s real fix of ghoulish voyeurism has to be the prospect of Jimmy Savile working off his tensions with a smile and a song in the same show. The aforementioned Clive James used to award a Bad Sight of the Week retrospectively in his TV cotumns.l think we may just have predicted the big one. (Alastair Mabbott)
the other day and I thought “Oh my God. what was I doing that for'?“.‘
From headbands to high couture with Katherine Hamnett. who will be Sue Lawley's castaway on Radio Four‘s Desert Island Discs on Sunday May 21 (12. 15pm). She chooses the eight records. the book and the luxury item she would take tothe mythical isle. Ask her nicely and she might also tell us how to construct hammocks. bivouacs and make-shift coconut strainers using only the big T-shirts with which she made her reputation.
South Sea considerations of a more tangible nature are provided next week by the novelist Kazou lshiguro when he appears on Radio Three‘s Third Ear programme. The grace and subtlety of lshiguro's writing won widespread acclaim for his first two novels set in his native Japan. He applies these same qualities to evoke a highly personalised (almost surreal) vision of England in his novel The Remains of the I )a_v.
Born in Nagasaki. lshiguro flittcd to these shores twenty-eight years ago and published his first novel A Pale View Of The Hills in 1982. Four yearslater. lshiguro went on to write An Artist ofthe Floating World which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He will be talking about his life and career to another novelist. Christopher Hope on Radio Three (23 May. 7.05pm).
Taking a breather from her televisual hot-seat this weather is BBC Scotland‘s doyenne of the airwaves Mary Marquis. who pops up with her own laid-back talking shop Speaking Personally on Radio Scotland (23 May. 9.30pm). Mary and her guests will be kicking a variety oftopics around. the first edition focusingon Royalty. Taking part will be Joy Hendry. editor of ('hapmans literary magazine. Norman St John Stevas and PeterJones. Professor of l lumanities at Edinburgh University. ‘Speaking Personally is the sort ofconversation you‘d enjoy after a night out or over a meal ' says Mary. ‘lt's nota brains trust — just a lively exchange of thoughts and ideas. with stories and anecdotes thrown in .'
Mary's apparent antipathy towards the higher disciplines ofthe mind and her telling chip-shouldered suspicion ofall focussed intellectual debate more than likely means she will not be tuninginto Spectrum next week. when Colin Tudge interviews leading white-coats and allows them to talk at length about their work at the frontiers of mode rn science (Radio Three —‘ 22 May. 10.15pm). John Cairnsof Harvard will be explaining how the ability of certain bacteria to mutate to orderis upsetting our fundamental understanding of natural selection while Stephen Wolfram will be giving an account ofhis own scientific practise: complexity for its own sake. There‘s always one. isn't there?
The Archers are ten thousand episodes old this month and where there isan anniversary a TV celebrity is never far away. On this hallowed occasion the chump in question will be Terry Wogan. admittedly a bit of a catch for the bucolic soap. As to the nature ofTerry‘s involvement. it's a secret and no one is talking. The cast of The Archers have been sworn to secrecy and the show‘s producer Lynda Snell has apparently ‘promised a ducking in the village pond to anyone who sneaks'. But rest assured — the confrontation between Wogan and the locals will ‘rock the very rootsof Ambridge and leave fans up and down the country speechless‘. not a particularly taxing task. one imagines. as most ofthe show‘s followers are known to chomp on copious Ploughman's Lunches when listening in order to capture the full scope of The Ambridge Experience. But what forebodings does Terry's visit augur'? Will the genial lrishman continually interrupt the Vicar's address? And what ofhis genial lrish toupée'.’ Will it be entered for Ambridge Sheepdog trials?