IT IS PERHAPS typical of the British approach to the arts that television’s two most important arts programmes are shown on Sundays.

The scheduling, of course, is not accidental. ABC’s “Tempo” turns up early on Sunday afternoons because Channel 9 has never paid more than lip service to culture.

There must be an arts programme to grace every company’s annual report and ITV’s Year Book has to have a few titles to fill out its Arts Section, which is easily the thinnest in its glossy recapitulation commercial TV activities.

Indeed, the ITV Report’s discussion of the arts goes out of its way to defend its neglect of the arts by asserting that programmes about painting, opera, ballet and music are really not suitable to the medium.

Its excuses include the lack of colour, the small screen, the distracting influences of seeing an orchestra. The most superficial scrutiny immediately annihilates these objections.

The truth behind this tortuous apologia is that Channel 9 produces as few arts programmes as it can because the arts traditionally have only a minority appeal. And to many ITV executives “minority” is an eight-letter word just twice as dirty as any four-letter word.

But respectably large audiences can be built up for such minority activities as show-jumping, ten-pin bowling, snooker and iceskating: a little bit of persistence and courage could do the same for music, books, ballet, painting and the theatre.

Since, however, courage has never been a particularly discernible attribute of the ITV, we have instead “Tempo” – trailing behind it a reputation for failure – plopped from one unpopular slot to another as the sole, consistent, cultural symbol on Channel 9. The latest attempt at a kiss-of-life to this chronically ill programme is the introduction of a series called “Entertainers.”

Last Sunday the juxtaposition of the pop singer Tom Jones and the ballet dancer Lynn Seymour was an almost classic example of derivative banality.

They were asked whether success had changed them, did they like being photographed, did they do much rehearsing, did Mr. Jones’s voice suffer because of his aggressive singing style – and the answers were almost as trite as the questions.

The narrator, in a portentous voice, made such profound observations as “success inevitably changes people … promotion and publicity are all part of the star system…” Will somebody please soon put “Tempo” out of its misery?

The BBC treats culture quite differently. While ITV shuns it as if it were suffering from galloping BO, the BBC treats it with the careful reverence of an elderly waiter carrying a bottle of rare claret to a wine connoisseur.

Its range of arts programmes grow evermore esoteric, specialised and narrow. Except for a few panel games, the policy seems to be to please the cognoscenti and to keep the masses out.

Replacing Monitor – which occasionally made an obeisance to the uninformed – comes Sunday Night. And was there ever a title more carefully designed to discourage the hot polloi from tasting delights beyond their cultural station?

The Platonic Dialogues, an interpretation of Yeats, the madness of Robert Schumann as reflected in his music and the dabbling of the Brownings into Victorian spiritualism, are a few of the offerings of Sunday Night that I have seen.

The Platonic Dialogue was brilliant. Yeats was fascinating. Schumann was absorbing. The Brownings were interesting. But only to those with an initial curiosity, understanding or sympathy about these subjects.

The recent account by Jonathan Miller of the impression made by American spiritualist Daniel Dunglas Home, on Robert and Elizabeth Browning, is typical of the direct which this programme is heading.

A fragmentary anecdote, it was blown up to represent some sort of comment on the Victorian attitude to death. In reality it was merely a husband and wife differing about the credentials of a medium. The same argument goes on in many a middle-class home to-day.

With no technical resources to give it any TV life – the sight of Dunglas Home floating at ceiling height ought to have been within BBC capacities – we were offered merely a series of close-ups of Eleanor Bron languishing, Kenneth Haig persuading and Robert Gillespie protesting. A self indulgent little thing for the few; the rest would have fled elsewhere.

Programmes like those on Sunday Night are, of course, an essential element of the coverage of the arts. But need they be the exclusive approach to the arts?

I have never understood why the arts cannot be treated as an ordinary, everyday, commonplace adjunct to life. No more exclusive than politics; no more elite than sport: no more difficult than foreign affairs.

Why have we not had Panorama or a This Week on the arts? A programme that deals with art as news subject to the same critical, controversial, informative approach.

In the past fortnight there was Graham Greene’s novel, The Comedians, Arthur Miller’s play, Incident at Vichy, with the author in England to discuss it, a row over the staging of the Covent Garden opera, The Flying Dutchman, the virtual end of circulating libraries, fresh developments at the Tate Gallery. All of these matters are exciting issues to far more people than ever go ice skating or watch snooker.

With an interest in art breaking out all over the land, with the increasing problem of more leisure, with the growing capacity of our artistic talents to help our balance of payments problem, it is about time that art on TV stopped being treated either as a pariah or a pope.

– Milton Shulman

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POP records are not only big business but a social phenomenon. There is little doubt that they are making a discernible impact in the shaping of the new Britain.

From being the squarest nation in Europe we are fast becoming the coolest. Foreigners familiar with the Britain of Victor Silvester and hunt balls are staggered by the transformation they find in the dancing seen in jazz clubs and discotheques.

The grace, the rhythm, the abandon – not to mention the improvement in the looks of the girls – have that sophisticated natural quality that one used to associate only with the more exclusive haunts in Paris, Manhattan and St. Tropez.

Barriers

More important, that ease and lack of restraint has begun to manifest itself in certain social side-effects among the young.

Class and racial barriers erode much more quicker when peers’ daughters swing unselfconsciously with lorry drivers and Negro musicians.

The innate rivalry of the dance floor has created a heightened awareness of such status ornaments as hair styles, smart clothes and make-up.

The time-consuming demands of the pop craze has so canalised their energies that relatively few of them display much interest in politics, social problems or even hobbies.

The intimacy of their surroundings and the encouragement of physical abandon has also inevitably resulted in a freeing and liberalising of sexual inhibitions.

But is all this any different from the twenties, when teenagers were swaying to the Charleston and the Black Bottom? It is all a question of degree and I think that at the moment we are going through a particular virulent phase of the rhythm epidemic.

And chief among the influences to be credited or blamed for this phenomenon is undoubtedly television.

There are at present no fewer than five weekly peak hour shows devoted exclusively to the playing and plugging of pop music. This compares with two programmes about politics, three about current affairs and two off-peak shows fortnightly devoted to all the arts.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of these pop programmes – presumably devoted to the ever-changing tastes and fads of their fans – is how quickly they congeal into frozen formulas and into mindless repetitiveness of the same technical gimmicks.

Oldest

The three oldest in the business – Ready, Steady, Go!, Thank Your Lucky Stars, and Juke Box Jury – have remained practically unchanged, down to the compere’s cement smiles, for almost three years.

Now with stentorian fanfares two of them ushered in what they shouted was to be a fresh era in pop presentation.

“We’re all terribly excited,” said Cathy McGowan, introducing Ready, Steady Goes Live. “It’s the very first show of its kind where everybody sings live.” If memory serves me right I thought that was what TV used to do before most of Miss McGowan’s audience were actually born.

There was no doubt that something fresh had to be done to Ready, Steady, Go! which had deteriorated disastrously from its early days, when its free-and-easy mingling of artists and audiences had given the show a spontaneity and bounce that appealed triumphantly to the very young.

But of late is anarchic shooting had become an excuse for sloppy directing, its natural studio environment had become a refuge for lazy set designers and cheap budgets, and its gay, lively enthusiasts had diminished into a jumble of spotty faced, frozen gawkers.

Harried into going live by a growing suspicion among audiences that mime merely disguised the incompetence of its performers, Ready, Steady, Go! moved into a larger studio and recruited some prettier girls into the audience.

But apart from discovering two girls who could sing remarkably like Dionne Warwick, it cannot be said that a new millennium in pop programmes was opened up by the renovation.

The problem of singing live proved that only Tom Jones and Miss Warwick could perform as effectively without the help of recording engineers. The actual sound balance of the programme was atrocious, with rhythm beats blotting out melodies and the background noises blurring the singing.

There was chaos in the cueing, with performers caught with their instruments down and egg all over their guitars. “You’ve done it again,” cried Manfred Mann at a bad cue. “Ready, Steady Goes Live. Aspirin sales have doubled!”

A.B.C.’s Thank Your Lucky Stars did much better with its revised show. Getting rid of all the nonsense stunts – audience markings “O’ll give it foive,” extraneous disc jockeys – the acts took place in a well-marked off arena, divorced form the audiences, allowing the lighting effects to play their full part.

Screams

By cutting to the fist-chewing, hysterical screamers in the audience only when it was needed to match the effect of the performers, the viewers at home could get an uncluttered, clean-cut picture of groups like the Beatles, the Animals and the Drifters without interruptions from the stamping fett and waggling behinds of the studio fodder.

I am at a loss, however, to explain the continued tolerance of the B.B.C. for Juke Box Jury. The juxtaposition of close-ups of astigmatic children and square-faced Moms with the sound of the latest records has long since ceased to be of any conceivable visual interest.

The sight of middle-aged people like David Tomlinson, Joan Turner and Catherine Boyle trying to communicate their with-it-ness to a glum-faced, mummified audience is one of the continuing embarrassments on TV.

What conceivable use their judgments are escapes me when last week no fewer than seven out of nine records were solemnly nominated as hits. David Tomlinson, indeed, voted for nine out of nine as hits which, as a standard, would make the turnover in the Top Ten as active as an explosion of jumping beans.

Smashing

This programme, like Ready Steady Go! also tends to correlate pop music with inarticulateness. The vocabulary of Sue Lloyd on Juke Box Jury seemed to be confined chiefly to the words “I love it, I think it’s great.” Cathy McGowan, doing most of the talking in Ready, Steady, Go! announced a “smashing” competition, thanked Manfred Mann for a “smashing” arrangement, said a harmonica player was “smashing” and told us that the four dancing couples we were going to see were – guess what? “smashing.”

And, in addition to doing something about this potential deleterious effect on teenager speech, could the producers of these programmes not be so shamelessly ready to plug any new American star that happens to float into town?

Dionne Warwick, in spite of her undoubted talent, does not deserve a spot on the Eamonn Andrews Show, Ready, Steady, Go!, Thank Your Lucky Stars and Juke Box Judy [sic] in just under ten days.

It would, indeed, be healthier all round if the entire pop world were farm more independent of the public relations men in the record business.

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They lived three doors apart in Shepperton, Middlesex: identical houses, architect-designed, open-plan jobs, all glass, sunshine and light, before Tom moved on, a fortnight ago, to a house at Sunbury-on-Thames (which, incidentally, once belonged to Dickie).

But on this lazy, hazy summer afternoon I’ve caught them on a neighbourly rendezvous, sharing ice-cold lager at Dickie’s place. A rare afternoon. It’s not often their engagements on stage, television or in cabaret allow them to get together.

And when they do they talk … about television, stage and The Dickie Valentine Show, which starts on Friday and which stars the pair of them.

“Television,” says Tom, “is still the most nerve-racking business of all for a performer. You know, I squirm in my seat just watching singers I know performing on television; I know how worked up they are.

“You’re inhuman if that huge, unseen audience out there doesn’t affect you. On a live show, you know when an audience is with you. Or against you. On TV, you’re never sure.”

“Right,” says Dickie. “And you can be the biggest stage attraction in the country and go virtually unrecognised unless you get exposure on television. It’s the greatest challenge an artist can have; that’s why I like to have confidence in the guest stars on my show. And why I asked for Tom.

“We don’t know what we’re going to do yet. But we know we get on together. That we can adapt. We’re mates.”

Mates, yes. Yet they are of different eras.

Dickie: smooth, immaculate balladeer of the big-band age, one of the first British singers girls screamed at and over in the Fifties. Quiet, deep, introspective, yet not insular.

Tom: expressive, explosive, rhythm and blues orientated artist, right in the big-time of the Sixties.

Different worlds. Last time I met Tom, it was among the summer season jet-setters of Juan-les-Pins, on the Riviera. My last rendezvous with Dickie was here at his home.

And how do these worlds differ? How have standards, music, fans, records and television changed?

Dickie: “I think my day was a lot friendlier. Fans were better natured. The kids who tore their hair over me, did the same for Dennis Lotis, David Whitfield, Frankie Vaughan. Now the fans tear each other’s hair out. That’s not sour grapes, Dave. There’s a lot to be said for the current crop of kids. They just seem to be a bit more violent. It’s just the way things have developed.”

Tom: “Aye, there is a lot of bad feeling between rival fan units. I’ve been a tearaway in my time, mind, but I find it a bit distasteful now. Puts you off doing concerts.”

So how has music changed?

Tom: “Oh, the scene now is vast, tremendously comprehensive. Pop stars get so much exposure on television and radio. I mean, when I was a kid in South Wales, you never saw a big pop name.

“I would have hitch-hiked for miles in the rain to see someone like Dickie. And pop television and radio programmes were once-a-week things; now you only have to switch on to have it all day.”

So who had it easier? To make a hit?

Dickie: “Much easier in my day. You only had to sell 15,000 records to make the charts. Today, that amount is hardly enough to go around all the disc jockeys and radio stations.”

Tom: “Yes. it must be tougher now. When I was a big fan, a singer adopted a style. Sold hit after hit in exactly that style. Now you find one style and hit the jackpot. Try it again and have a rip-roaring flop. There’s so much more pop these days. It covers enormous amounts of ground and style. And it’s beyond analysis what makes a hit.”

Dickie is still a big band man. He has a genuine love for his era; they will always be good old days. His record library is packed with good things by Billy May, Stan Kenton, Count Basic, and his old “guv’nor,” Ted Heath.

Tom is faithful still to his teenage idols — Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Elvis Presley.

The two play their favourites alternately, listen, comment, make points and occasionally argue. Just a couple of professionals, on a rare day off, ready to listen to the other man’s view, ready to compromise.

The post Lanning at Large… with stars from different worlds appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Between sips of champagne I am discussing love and marriage with Miss Anita Harris!

While sitting upstairs on a 1910, open-top, horse-drawn London omnibus, clumping gracefully down Park Lane on a fine spring morn! And it’s all in the cause of authenticity. In Tuesday’s Tom Jones! show, Anita sings a “Love and Marriage” duet with Tom, seated picturesquely in a horse-drawn carriage.

I invite her to expound more fully on the subject.

“Right,” she says. “Come and join me on a publicity stunt; it will be an appropriate setting.”

Now publicity is part and parcel of show business. But, at least, Anita could have told me exactly what was in store. But she’s like that. Touch of the mischievous. Loves to catch people out; to see the look of amazement on their faces.

Just like the one I register, when we rendezvous outside the London Palladium, and I see this magnificent, spiral-staired old bus, hired for the occasion from a Luton farmer — horses and all.

There’s Anita, looking gorgeous in an Irish plaid, mini-skirted costume. On the seat opposite: Suzanna Leigh, Elvis Presley’s recent leading lady, ditto gorgeous, along for the ride as well. There are hosts of models in absolutely outrageous hats. The champers flows. Yes, I am willing to concede there are less glamorous ways of earning a living than this…

Hm, but love and marriage. That’s what I’m here to discuss. Bachelor girl Anita, talented, attractive, definitely eligible, has strong views on the subject. Or at least, she did have. Didn’t I see a report of her on record as saying: “I don’t believe in show business marriages. The casualty rate is too high. I would never marry anyone in show business.”

Her big brown, cleverly made-up eyes roll, she sighs and admits’ “I did say that once. Haven’t you got a long memory, Dave? It was when I started in show business — I was 16 at the time, the prototype teenager, very impressionable.

“I did a season singing in Las Vegas, and it seemed that all around me show business marriages were going on the rocks. But I’m older now” — 23 — “and I’ve rather changed my views.”

Surprising how Anita, who has a Goonish sense of humour (she’s a great fan, and friend of Harry Secombe) can turn on the seriousness. It hardly fits our zany surroundings, but it’s interesting.

So what made her change her mind?

“Getting to know happily married couples in the business,” she says, waving grandly to astonished patrons of a red London bus (circa ’67), circumnavigating Hyde Park Corner. “Just observing how they live and co-exist.“

Such couples as Anne and Gerald (The Rat Catchers) Flood — whose hospitality and bonhomie I can also commend — and Kenneth Cope (Jed Stone, Coronation Street) and his wife, Renny Lister.

At this point, our cosy, if draughty, tête-à-tête breaks off, due entirely to a surprise outburst from Miss Leigh, who has to date been a quiet, interested listener to Anita’s theories.

She lives near here, and is convinced that Dobbin, our lead horse, is taking the wrong route to our eventual destination in King’s Road, Chelsea.

Horses, however, aren’t cab drivers. Despite Suzanna’s protestations, Dobbin plods on regardless.

Suddenly, alongside, trots a trim little red wagon, advertising a firm of cigarette manufacturers, pulled by two magnificent high-stepping greys.

Our coachman grins and says: “The grey on the right is old Dobbin’s girl friend!” Dobbin winks a blinkered eye as the mare swings by. It’s spring ail right; love and marriage is in the air. Dobbin obviously knew where he was going…

Says Anita: “The most important consideration of any marriage is… is it love or not. That is all that matters.”

Now there’s a certain faraway look in Anita’s eye and I have a suspicion it isn’t entirely the spring air and the champers. Is she… could she… has this love business got through to her?

She grins. She frowns. She giggles. She puckers. It must be love. Then she says: “Everyone always says ‘no comment’ to that question, Dave, and it’s rotten of you to put me on the spot. All I’m going to say is that last night I had a marvellous dinner with a very old friend and well, oh, I don’t know, it could be happening, I suppose.”

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