Maureen Barnes Down the tube
David Attenborough seems to spend his working life these days doing voice- overs for the work of other naturalists, which presumably is supposed to lend some sort of intellectual credibility to a production. On a mediocre production this could be said to be misleading to the viewer, and on good ones it means that newer film-makers don’t get the name and credit they deserve.
Two superb nature films were screened with the Attenborough voice of approval, in return for a substantial fee, I imagine, on Sunday November 22. Both had unusual shots of their subjects and must have taken skill and patience by experts to produce. Attenborough, apart from reading a script written for him by someone else, had nothing whatsoever to do with the production of either.
The first was a Wildlife on One programme about ravens and was on M-Net at 5pm. It revealed that this is the most intelligent of all birds and, due to its cleverness and adaptability, is found almost everywhere – from the Arctic to arid deserts.
Ravens can live for 40 years, and they mate for life. There was fascinating footage of a couple called Nevermore and Lenore, who have occupied the same Oregon cliffside together for 25 years.
The flying lesson given to a nervous fledgling by mama was wonderful; so was the way another pair in the frozen north fooled a dog – one distracted the animal while the other pinched his supper.
I recalled once being sorely tempted in a Tuscan village to buy a caged raven who pleasantly greeted me with “Buona sera, senorina” but I resisted – I don’t speak Italian so we would have had little to talk about back home.
Immediately following this at 6pm came a BBC Wildlife Special on SABC3 about polar bears, which was original and absorbing. It’s a tough life up there, and the sight of large numbers of bears, half starved during the hot summer months, came as a surprise to me.
I also didn’t realise that the reason newborn cubs are born so minute and most of their development takes place after birth is because the mother is, at that time of the year, too weak to sustain a long gestation period. Well . you all might know these things, but it was interesting news to me.
A few days earlier I’d been on M-Net’s Andrew Lloyd Webber binge. First came his 50th Birthday Bash which made Prince Charles’s little party look stingy. A succession of stars appeared and sang the birthday boy’s good, bad and often unmemorable songs. But even a mediocre pop song becomes helluva impressive when backed by a massed choir of 50E000 voices and a 1E000- piece philharmonic orchestra.
I knew and liked some of the performers. Elaine Paige sang Don’t Cry for Me Argentina for what seemed like hours, but what else can you do with it?
Antonio Banderas was also pretty to watch, and actress Glenn Close looked fantastic and sang remarkably well in the Gloria Swanson role in Sunset Boulevard. There was a pleasant tenor, whose name I don’t know, and a happy pop group, Boyzone, which seemed to be having a great time.
The wonderful cellist, Julian Lloyd Webber, in T-shirt and takkies, played a ditty of his brother’s with flair.
And then, of course, there was pop-eyed Sarah Brightman, screeching away as usual, and squashed into a frock about 10 sizes too small for her. At least wondering if she would burst out of it took one’s attention off her singing.
At the end out came the gnome-like Lloyd Webber to make a speech which, I must say, he did charmingly. He is very keen that musical theatre should be sustained and to this end he introduced Dame Kiri Te Kanawa to sing a song from something he’s busy with “for the next millennium”.
It seemed to me an awful song; one of those pretentious numbers he’s so fond of. Oh, how I longed for the good old Tim Rice days, before Lloyd Webber became a deity, when the pair of them wrote tuneful music that made you feel good.
However, Dame Kiri has a voice which could make even a laundry list sung to the tune of Old MacDonald sound heavenly. And she did.
The following night M-Net screened the original production of Cats, which was fun and sparked an incredible amount of nostalgia in South Africans who have seen the show in London during its 18-year run.