Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION
These last two Tuesdays have seen the broadcast of the awesome BBC production of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast on M-Net. The detail, the imagination and technical tour de force of this series is hard to praise sufficiently. It was received to rapturous critical acclaim in the United Kingdom and sets its own benchmark in televisual endeavour. How can one describe Gormenghast? A Gothic fairy tale? An intricate fable in the vein of Lord of the Rings? A supremely ornate story set in a fantasy kingdom of spires and palaces and secret charms, peopled by grotesque and hideously funny satirical caricatures? It is all of those and much more. The joy of watching was in its continually fascinating referential undercurrent. There were scenes straight out of Alice in Wonderland, fragments of a Dickens gone haywire – even the names are Dickensian: Mr Flay, Lord Groan, Princess Fuchsia, Dr Prune and the young hero, Steerpike. No expense was spared with a cast list including Ian Richardson, Christopher Lee, Zoe Wanamaker and many others. The direction and design and costuming of this truly splendid production is quite fabulous. As has become its habit, the presentation department at M-Net was at its crudest best, trying at every turn to ruin the experience. Their intrusive VN logo was left up for 13 minutes, despoiling the magnificent camerawork. Why in the first place there should be a warning about nudity when the only possible reason was a two-second shot of a wet nurse’s nipple could only be explained by the prudes at M-Net; the same ones who scour films frame by frame lest the word “God” is ever heard. I didn’t really have space last week to comment on the quite appalling footage broadcast in Carte Blanche on October 15: the shockingly brutal methods by which Japanese fishermen slaughter dolphins. The insert also dealt with the great lie being foisted around by the Japanese when it comes to justifying their annual hunting and killing of 400 minke whales. The claim is that these precious animals are being killed so as to advance scientific study of the species, which is as blatant a global lie as possible. It certainly doesn’t explain how most of the catch ends up in whale-meat restaurants. Derek Watts tried hard to get some reaction from the Japanese bureaucrat responsible for dolphin quotas, only to find that he was trying to extract human response from a stone wall. That the world at large has not started a major boycott of Japanese products remains a mystery. Something radical is needed to bring this facet of Japanese tradition into line with ecological and humane realities.
As a television columnist I should leave radio to others but, in this instance, I claim relief from my strictures. It’s just that last week I heard the well known political evangelist, Max du Preez, sharing his prophecies with the nation on the Tim Modise Show. I felt this need to share them with those of you unfortunate enough to have missed them. I always listen to this SAfm show over my toast and tea, mainly from a continuing fascination as to how many times in any 10 minutes Mr Modise manages to mention his own name. The record stands presently at 14. Anyway, Max was up there last Tuesday, sounding forth on the matter of the African renaissance; more grist to his bustling mill. He appeared to be largely in favour of the renaissance but when he got on to the subject of its most conspicuous progenitor, Mr Thabo Mbeki, Max shifted into overdrive, describing Mr Mbeki as possibly the most sophisticated and intellectually profound world leader on today’s stage. (Not that Jacob Zuma would agree. He thinks Robert Mugabe adequately fills that role.) What Max was saying came across more as a job application than anything else. I had to wonder whether he’s already grown weary of playing Afrikaans cultural commissar at De Kat and is looking with envy at Tony Heard’s position in the high political chattering classes? Max would blend in well with all the high intellect washing around the presidency. What is more, changing wagons in midstream has never been a great strain for Max, as he showed when he did that death-defying somersault from Vrye Weekblad to the SABC newsroom. Having Max in the inner folds would further ratify the growing fusion of ANC and Afrikaner idealism. As I say, radio is not my province, but some gems glow beyond their boundaries.