I switched off my TV, permanently, almost

I have finally run out of patience. Watching television increasingly makes me feel physically sick. US public radio legend Garrison Keillor understands my pain:

“TV distracts you by flashing pictures at you and doing camera acrobatics. People sometimes tell me stories I told them on the radio years ago. Quite astonishing. TV has attention deficit disorder built into it, unfortunately.” (from an interview with the BBC).

BBC4 last night screened a vitally important documentary entitled Mortgaged to the Yanks. Sir Christopher Meyer examined one of the most shameful episodes in recent British history. It was fascinating but almost unwatchable. The cretinous director/producer clearly thought his audience too dumb and impatient to want to just focus on the facts and arguments. Instead we had to see things though a steadicam deliberately made un-steady, dodging and weaving around the shots. Was this supposed to give an edginess to the show? The arguments were edgy in themselves. This was an account of some of the most fraught moments in British history, illustrated by interviews with some key players and those who inherited the debt. It didn’t need to be messed around with. It would, I reckon, have made a great Radio 4 broadcast. Perhaps BBC4 is a national disaster almost as big: programs that should just be audio on Radio 4 now have to have pictures as well. Damn the BBC! Save the BBC!

If a subject needs additional edgy, flashy, fast, effects, then its not worth bothering with. If it doesn’t but is subjected to the now habitual use of sub-1-second shots, then it’s been wrecked by TV, as is almost everything now. Even worse, many TV presenters seem to be competing with the camera effects, adding un-necessary expressions and inflections. And then the scriptwriters join in with additional layers of sensationalism!

From now on audio only, no picture. An afternoon spent bashing, scraping and painting old bits of motorcycle in a dark garage while listening to Jonathan Bate talk King Lear on an ancient radio – that was my Boxing Day. That’s better than a lifetime of The Culture Show’s fake liminality.

Perhaps with just one or two exceptions. Heston Blumenthal I like. He has concentration and skill. The camera is forced to give way to his hands and his intelligence. Bill Oddie is charming, conducting a symphony of starlings. That nice Kate girl too. And the poor bugger they send out into the freezing cuds of the north – Simon. There’s also a wildlife presenter who does programmes about migrations, quite straightforwards and engaging, and minimal in its use of music (wildlife does not need bloody orchestras, it did years ago when the film and audio recording wasn’t very good, but now it is un-necessary – I want to hear the sounds of the wild, with Attenborough whispering a well informed commentary). Billie Piper is gorgeous, full of character and endlessly watchable. And of course there is Bruce Parry – yikes! – but entirely convincing.

Robert O'Toole : 04 Jan 2007 20:00 |  Comments (7) |  Report a problem