50 years No Change

The elite who dominate television today are much more careful of the effects programmes can have than they were in the past.  Or possibly it is that in the past TV producers were really trying to prove the power of TV and also wished to change society for the better, today TV people are the elite and wish to keep it that way.  Therefore the screen is dominated by pap!  Soap Operas dominate, drama is mere soap opera with guns and explosions and the day is filled with mind numbing emptiness.
Anything that shakes society is not allowed, any programme that investigates the powerful is hindered all the way, even the BBC news broadcasts are strictly limited by government influence these days, how bad is that?
During 1966, when I was a mere 15 years old and therefore open to radical thought, a programme appeared on screen during a series called 'The Wednesday Play.'  Today this would be middle class angst at best or soap opera pap at worst but in 1966 these plays tackled social issues in a manner never seen before.  Radical, outspoken and bringing the reality of life into the home for many thereby disturbing the nations settled existence.
One such programme was 'Cathy Come Home,' a play concerning the break up of the happy life of a young couple left to defend themselves against an uncaring state.
The story is simple enough, young and free they marry, get a house, get a job and begin a family.  All goes well until illness means he loses his job, bailiffs throw them out of their house, they end up squatting in ruined homes, he runs off and eventually the kids are taken away from her.
Watching this in my happy Edinburgh home I was seriously touched by the image in front of me in the way only a 15 year old can be.  The nation was touched also.  How could such things be in our state?  Questions were asked in parliament, debate raged in the media, and in the end nothing changed.
In the early 60's some were working to change the situation regarding housing in the UK one of them a Church of Scotland minister called Bruce Kenrick.  This man worked in Notting Hill now the paradise of £1 million pound one bed flats but then a hell on earth of bed sits and crooked landlords. On top of this there were racial tensions as the locals objected to black and Irish immigrants moving into the area, many flats for rent had signs, 'No Blacks & No Irish.'  Riots occurred in Notting Hill during 1958 in which local 'Teddy Boys' attacked those they disliked.  All lived in squalid poor accommodation and the lack of decent housing was one cause of the problems.
Bruce Kendrick began the Notting Hill Housing Trust with no money whatsoever and this has since grown to manage some 28,000 properties.  I spent a year working there moving people into new home back in the early 70's before you were born.
A few weeks after 'Cathy Come Home' was screened Bruce brought into being the housing charity 'Shelter' which has become established throughout the land campaigning for better housing for all.  It is noticeable that since Thatcher their work has been harder still!  
The quality of the production, using radical techniques unknown at the time to TV audiences heightened the power of 'Cathy Come Home.'  It hit hard and has often been seen as the best TV programme ever offered.  Maybe this is indeed the case, the effect has never left me and was one reason for my joining the charity work in Notting Hill in 1971.   However the programme made little difference, governments then, Conservative and Labour, were concerned with keeping their jobs rather than running after TV programmes and public outcries.  Fuss and bother has never moved an MP to radical action and it did nothing in 1966 and does nothing today under an ever more elite governing class than what existed in the 60's.
I just remembered how things were after the war, then there was an urgent need for housing and various governments wondered what to do.  The Conservatives led by Churchill (a Liberal by nature) instructed Harold MacMillan to build 3 million in three years.  This he did in less time!  These council homes were on the whole decent enough and if the people were good the area was good.  The people decide if it is decent  not politicians.  Until Thatcher all was well but the greedy money loving uncaring brute allowed these to be bought by the residents cheaply, these decent homes were soon sold for a fat profit (by Labour 'socialists' as well as Tories) and now we have a housing problem.  I wonder why?  New houses today will only be built by developers for fat profit not for the people. 
Only strong political leadership can change a nation, we appear to have had little in the past and certainly have none whatsoever today.   

Television Plays

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In the days of two channel television there used to be a thing called 'Armchair Theater' from, I think, ATV TV. This competed with plays shown on the BBC and the other day the type of plays shown came to mind for some reason now forgotten. In between those featuring Judie Dench overemoting,(at least it saved writing scripts) there appeared plays which took us well aware from the run of the mill stuff that now dominates the small screen. Today, as you know, anything that appears on screen is merely a soap opera! Often it is an American version which includes guns, explosions and women throwing themselves at the anti-hero star. (British version differ in that they contain guns, explosions and a woman throwing herself at the anti-hero star.)
However in the sixties this was not the case. One of the first, which appeared around the time we first had our Ferranti Telly, featured a spacecraft hanging over London threatening earth! I can remember the scene in the Cabinet Room as the Prime Minister and his cohorts discussed the situation. As they spoke my folks debated whether this was 'live' or not! I can remember my dad saying "That's not Harold MacMillan!" as if to convince my mum that it was indeed a play. Now you understand why I have no brains! A later play featured two men sitting on a park bench discussing life. As the talk continued it became obvious one of them came from Mars. Such events are not shown today, nor is the one concerning the department store. This featured a young men wandering around a store after closing time and discovering the mannequins that modelled the clothes in the store window. As he looked at them, and those inside the shop, they began to speak to him. By the end of the play he had of course become one of them and was found standing in the window, statuesque like. One other featured Bernard Cribbens, at least my memory tells me so, and this concerned a man who's skin slowly began to turn into steel. This began around his midriff and slowly made its way upwards. His anxious wife and not so anxious doctor stood by the bed, ignoring him, and discussing the situation. In the end he dies. Maybe this had a satiric value that my young mind could not gather, possibly it was just written by a nutter?    


Now tastes change and time passes but it appears to me that television today only wants soaps and simple to understand 'drama.' That is why the quality is so poor. A comment made on the 'Steptoe & Son,' programme claimed that comedy today was poor because it required a laugh every thirty seconds, there being no time to create characters or situations. We live in simpler times, the TV audience cannot cope with much beyond soaps and reality shows. The drama I mentioned from the past may be a bit esoteric, whatever that means, but at least it was something different. I suppose in the fifties and sixties TV had room for experiment, today this is not allowed. There again red tape intervenes. Memory tells me that the radio programme 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue,' was created by Graeme Garden and one other discussed the idea in the BBC canteen, went upstairs to the Radio controller and were given the go-ahead there and then. Now it takes several layers of suits before a programme is offered to the nation. Somewhere along the way creativity and spontaneity have been lost.


There again, maybe it's just me thinking today's telly is garbage of course and past times appear better.


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