REVIEW TELEVISION
randomnnllll Stalk show
Six years ago, California made stalking a crime, and the rest oi the world still has to catch up. That it happened in Caliiornia beiore anywhere else can be explained by the high concentration oi celebrities in Los Angeles, but the vast majority of cases involve ordinary people. And, as in cases oi rape and murder, the perpetrator is usually known to the :victim.
While making a iilm about SWAT teams last year, the Inside Story crew got to know the [APO Threat Management Unit and ended up making ‘Stalking The Stalkers’ about the cops who iollow up cases that those over here would avoid like the plague: irom the man who claimed to be Madonna’s husband and was eventually shot by her bodyguard to the ordinary woman who has been stalked across America ior nineteen years. But it would be wrong to look upon the iilm as just another glimpse oi lite across the Pond.
‘For example,’ says producer James Cutler, ‘in Portsmouth at the moment there’s a thirteen-year-old girl who’s being stalked by a 38-year-old guy. But the police don’t consider him to be hanniul, which is moronic. llothing could be more dangerous than a guy obsessed with a girl that age.’
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H I. -' 1:ch "7 Stalking The Stalkers: the [APO Threat
Management Team bust weirdo
In May, the Government even blocked a Private Member’s Bill to outlaw stalking, a decision which seems all the more senseless when you see how necessary the LAPD Threat Management Unit is becoming.
‘This is the iuture,’ Cutler continues, ‘and as Leonard Cohen said in one oi his songs, “I’ve seen the future and it’s murder.” One psychiatrist in the programme says that maybe the reason there is so much stalking in LA is that liie is atomised. People are responsible to no one except their landlord, the iamily structure has broken down, it’s not boy meets girl any more, it’s “iii, is there anybody out there on the chatlines?” ’ (Alastair Mabbott)
Inside Story: Stalking The Stalkers is on Wed 17 on 8801 at 9.30pm.
RADIO HIGHLIGHTS
I A History 0i Britain In Six Menus: lleale llome Cooking - A 20th Century Snack (Radio 4) Sun l4 Jul. ll.45am. If you think us Brits have bad diets now. check out Leslie Forbes’s visiott of the dinner ofthe future in the last programme of her culinary history of Britain series. Angel Delight. roast beef. mustard crisps and vitamin pills (hopefully not necessarily in that order) are her prediction for the average space-age teatime treat. And that‘s not forgetting the ice-cream made with liquid nitrogen. Give me meat and two veg anyday. I On This Day (Radio 4 — LW) Wed I7 Jul. lO.l5am. The show that leafs back through front page splashes from a single day in history chooses l7 Jrrly. l946. The National Association of Master Bakers are about to operate the bread rationing scheme; Quare Times. the fastest dog iii the world. is barred from the greyhound track because of his speed; the taps of the country‘s first (and possibly last) village communal baths are turned on in Great Brington. and professional Hollywood gossips predict the longest. most expensive screen kiss in history is about to take place between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant in NuItrI'imM'. Things just ain’t what they used to be. I Janice Forsyth With Fred MacAulay (Radio Scotland) Sat 20 Jul. IOam. Janice is not on her show today. so tip-top Scottish stand-up Fred MacAulay is there instead. chatting to celebrity guests. playing suitably Saturday morning-type tunes and doing all the things that Janice does. I Phoenix 96 (Radio I) Sat 20 Jul. Ipm—4am. Get Phoenix without getting muddy. running out of toilet paper or falling out with the people sharing your tent who you once thought were your friends. Instead sit in your nice. comfy house and tune your tranny to fifteen hours live and direct from this year's
festival with sets front Alattis Morisette. Foo Fighters. Manic Street Preachers. Massive Attack. Skunk Atransie arid The Prodigy. The live/ring Sets/mt. I)(IIIII\' Rump/[Ire '.v l.ut‘t't4rum't' I)mrt't' I’urrv and The lisxeltliri/ Mir with Pete Tong all broadcast live from the event and Radio 1‘s own dattce stage brings yotr l’attl ()aketrfold. Titr Tin. l).l Food and (‘oldcut I karma Coniusion? (Radio I r Sun 2| .Illl. 7pm. While packs of blissed-oul young Westerners head for India in search of the ultimate Goa trance dance experience. ltrdian teenagers are going mad for Western tnusic beamed by way of satellite stations like MTV Asia and Star TV's Chantth V. Apache Indian hooks tip with Ravi Shanker arid other luminaries of the Indian music scene and asks whether Western influences will destroy or enhance Indian culture.
I Tina Turner live At Wembley (Radio I ) Sun 2| Jul. 8pm. If you missed her at Murraylield and yott can honestly say you liked the theme for (in/t/t'nt've. hows your chance to catch the glamorous granny frotn Nutbush iti full swing.
I Suez 1956 - The Crisis (Radio 4t Wed 24 Jul. 7.20pm. Probing documentary in which Nick Clarke talks to those who played key roles iii the run-up to the short- lived war against Egypt which saw the combined forces of Britain. France arid Israel prepared to risk all iii a futile battle to reclaim the Suez. Canal. Clarke has assembled an impressive roll-call of interviewees on the subject. including Michael Foot. then editor of The 'l'rr'lmrre. Mordechai Bar-On. who ran the Israeli Defence Minister's Office. Abel Thomas. Chef De Cabinet in the French MOD and Sir Thomas Prickett. ChiefOf Staff on the task force who hatched the invasion plans. Following this at Spot is a sister programme. Site: I 956 — The Conseqtu‘nce. which marks the 40th anniversary of the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company by looking at diplomatic relations between Egypt and Britain in the wake of Suez. (Ellie Carr)
It's all Dylan's fault of course If he hadn't allowed I).A. l’ennebaker to follow him around off stage with a camera back in I965. then we wouldn‘t have had Don’t look Back. If we hatln' had Don’t Look Back. then we woultln' have had the lictionalised big budget Hollywood re-make that was In Bed With Madonna. And. if we hadn‘t had in Bed With Madonna. then w e certainly wouldn‘t have had the straigh' to video. shoddy rip off down to the white terry dressing gowns that was Elton John - Tantrums and Tiaras (Sunday 7. Scottish).
‘We couldn't have done it live years ago. because I wouldn't have been ('HHI/NM' rrIert/t‘x.‘ said Elton toward the start of the sltow. displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of good teley ision. An overweight. balding. super-rich and. crucially. t/rng-m/tllt'tl .\I()R musician would have been worth watching. Maybe. Take away the drugs. and add a modicum of stability on the other hand. and all you‘re left with are the cheap and shallow delights of hair-weave pondering. pleasures which wear thin before too long.
The man with the Handycam behind the. uhm. | srrppose ‘doctttttentary’ is about as close as we can get. was Elton’s partner. David Furnish. ()bviously. then. this wasn't to be the work of a distanced eye. The only real ‘tantrum' catne early in the film. and from the perspective of this particular armchair. looked slightly self- colisc‘ititls‘. The strop is supposed to be over the filming of a video for EJ's latest single: his clothes have gone missing. he hates making videos anyway. Elton's anger is denoted by the fact that he punctuates every word with a variation on ‘fuck.’ But his delivery sounds forced and unconvincing. in his ‘anger' he makes no reference to the presence of the camera and. strangely. he and his cowering minions stay perfectly in frame throughout. It's much the same set tip for the spontaneous scenes of laughing and joking which come later.
While the film was supposed to be a candid portrait of the man. Furnish‘s questions were largely along the lines of ‘A lot of people would be interested in what you take on holiday with you‘ (a room full of clothes. basically). arid ‘Do you find it difficult to switch off." leaving moments of revelation few and
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far between; although it was pretty funny when Iiltotr's ttIum .said of his father ‘I don't think he liked you very mueh‘. After an hour. the message seems to be: \\ ltile it's not easy being a big star. Elton is aware ofjust how lucky he is. and although he's worked damn hard. he’s ottly human. (iosh. I'd IIL'\ el’ considered
liasically'. the film was a mess. Snippets of concert footage of the ttrost rackney‘ed sort were stuck itr here and here for no particular reason. Whole :htmks of screen time were taken up w ith badly edited montages of people getting in arid out of cars. walking .low it airport corridors and . horror of horrors ‘elowning arormd'. Apparently. Furnish intends to continue making such films with other celebs. Someone sit this tnan down immediately and explain to him that tin/truly is ever really interested in other people's wedding videos.
A far tnore eony ittcing look at animals in their natural state came with Dawn To Dusk (Tuesday's, BBCI ). Johnathan. Scott's programme breaks with the traditional approach to the wildlife film; instead of following the creatures for months on end in the hope of capturing particular pie-selected behavioural traits. Scott atrd his team film for one day only. in an attempt to accurately convey a particular animal's daily routine. The first episode landed them in Jane Goodall‘s wild chimp study project in the Tanzanian forest. A slightly unfortunate choice. as it happens. as the family ofclrimps they shadowed. the ‘F‘ family. had ttiemorably turned tip a few months ago on (.‘hannel 4's nature slot. and had behaved in exactly the same manner — which. obviously. makes one of the programmes slightly redundant. Not to worry though. chimps are always good television. no matter what they‘re up to. and. the final shots oftheir bedding down for the evening amongst the reddening branches of the trees. were worth the price of admission alone. Evert if you had seen it before. Now if only someone could convince Scott and his seam to turn their hands to celebrity documentary. Or. for that matter. if someone could strand Elton John and David Furnish in the middle of Gombe National Park. with only a camcorder for company. Just a thought. (Damien Love)
The List l2-25 Jul I996 75