The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 11

ARTS GUARDIAN tfriaay September 12 1980 PRESS VIEW RADIO Mary Harron listens to Hard to the revamped Radio 1, please Maggie and Helmut Schmidt. President Carter caught in all sorts of silly states has become a standard hobby for bored photographers during this endless run-up to the elections, and there are more than enough shots of him jogging, shaking hands, grinning or being grimly shadowed by Edward Kennedy. In fact it's hard not to feel that the balance of the exhibition is firmly tipped towards the American view of the world. The photographers of the Soviet Union are hard on their heels though, with the second largest entry to the competition. It's not hard news they go for, more human interest stories.

As the tanks rolled into Kabul, the Russian photographers were giving us photographic proof that babies can swim even under water before they can walk. Sergei Vasiliev won first prize in the general picture section for babes in the pool. As usual, the photographers of the Soviet Union were particularly strong on sport, while their opposite numbers in the USA, West Germany aond France were waiting for fatal accidents at the race tracks and daredevil arenas of the West. On our side, the human Interest images of the year were the Pope and Mother Teresa. Generally, there's a dulling monotony to the images, a kind of lip service to God and charity.

You can't help a sneaking suspicion that the heart of the matter is still believed to be shock, horror and the occasional "jrift" of actually being there when the bomb goes off in a Belfast terrace house. Photographers' Gallery, 8 Great Newport St, London, WC2 until October 12. HORROR was the stock in trade for press photos of 1979, just as it is in any other year. But that was the year of The horror, the hor. ror" as expressed in "Apocalypse Now.

It was the year of the Boat people, and the prize for Press Photo of the Year was awarded to a study of a Cambodian refugee captured in listless close-up by American photographer David Burnett. He deserved the prize, for among the hundreds of photographs of refugees this one stands out for its reticence. Its impact does not rely on immediate danger of starvation or drowning, but on a poignant detail only the tiny feet of the infant this Cambodian mother cradles can be seen, and like the best photographs it remains in the mind, in this case as an image of de-fencelessness. This year's World Press Photo competition, organised in Holland and judged by an international jury suitably balanced between East and West, the Third World and the old, attracted 4,890 entries from 905 photographers in 54 countries. A selection of the entries, and all the award winners, can be seen at the Photographers'-Gallery.

This is the opening show for the gallery's new premises, and a good way to begin. For one thing, it should encourage more British photographers to enter next time. They can certainly feel confident that they are up to standard, and encouragement is obviously an important part of the gallery's intent, backed up with a reference library, slide archive, print sales room and extra exhibition space. It makes sense to begin with press photographs for Left, the photo of the year; above, the Russian water baby Caroline Tisdall reviews the World Press Photo exhibition at the new Photographers' Gallery mmage takers I nmm mi ml in i Iran, many of them by press men from the United States, are uniformly harsh. If ever there was a smile in those early clays of the revolution, the photographers were cert-tainly not there to capture it.

Smiles are more the province of professional politicians at least when they know the camera is pointing at them. It's refreshing to find a sequence by John Downing of the Daily Express which gives the lie to the plastic media grins of which lasts until 6.30, is also aimed at motorists of all ages, driving home from work. The tension of reconciling these two audiences has reduced Powell to quivering uncertainty on Tuesday he played Being Boiled by the Human League, and then apologised repeatedly for the song's unsavoury title. It is not surprising if the daytime presenters sometimes sound uncomfortable with the music on their own shows, as the records are chosen by their producers. In the evening slots John Peel and, to a lesser extent, Mike Read do choose their own records, and their programmes are the only ones that show an understanding and a commitment to modern music.

Read's programme, which runs from 7.30-10. is intelligent and imaginative, and shows a range of music that was previously unheard of outside of the John Peel show. But Read sounds a little cautious, a little cramped. Perhaps he feels stifled by the Radio 1 tradition that dictates that a DJ should never have too many opinions. Reverence, responsibility, the duty to please everyone and offend no one are what keeps Radio 1 in a strait-jacket.

Able as Adrian Love is as a presenter, I wish his audience participation show, Talkabout (Tuesdays weren't so earnestly sixth-form. Responsibility also seems to have dampened John Peel (10 pm to For a decade he has carried the torch for the experimental, the outrageous and the obscure in the late Seventies he was the station's only champion of punk and, at the time, that took courage. Now his show is becoming a benevolent showcase, too often lost in a grey blur of experimentation. It fulfils a need, but duty is stifling, even when it serves the young avant-garde. It would be a pity if, through good intentions, the Peel programme became yet another institution.

SEASON ENDS 20 SEPT AMBASSADORS Theatre oi-836H7 FOR MOST of its 13 years Radio 1 has been cheerily patronising towards its audience. In its early days it seemed a poor substitute for the pirate radio stations. Where they were irreverent, trashy and illegal, Radio 1 was the bright pop face of a state institution. It offered licensed fun, like a dance parly under parental supervision. In later years the new commercial stations proved to be more in touch, but recently there has been a surprising reversal.

The independents now sound like an imitation of Radio 1, while Radio 1 sounds almost fresh and new. The change has been gradual, culminating in a new programme policy which was introduced last week. In the past, only the evenings and weekends offered a variety of new music the daytime programmes revolved around the playlist of safe commercial records that the producers drew up each week. The playlist had been heavily criticised for ignoring any music that was unusual, adventurous, or issued on an independent label. Now the playlist has been dropped, Radio 1 daytime programmes are a refreshing change from the endless, monotonous cycle of hit records found on other stations.

However the station's promises of a broader range are subject to interpretation. With Dave Lee Travis's breakfast show, or Paul Burnette's lunchtime spot, the idea of adventure is to substitute successful, bland disco-funk with obscure disco-funk. The monotony has been alleviated, but the DJs remain as smooth and ingratiating as ever. An honourable exception is Simon Bates with The Golden Hour (in two parts, weekdays from 9.30-10.30 and 2.30-3.30). Bates may be smooth and ingratiating, but his voice bubbles with cynicism as he reads out the innocent record requests.

Musically, the Golden Hour offers a steady diet of nostalgia which risks becoming tiresome. As ever, Radio 1 depends on a mixture of nostalgia and the charts to hold the attention of its vast, disparate audience. Where the evening programmes attract the dedicated rock fans, daytime radio is the universal background music company for motorists and the housebound, piped into factories and supermarkets. In the end it is not the plavlists that keeps daytime Radio 1 safe, but the pressure of providing something for everyone. The tone changes with Peter Powell's show at 3.30 which begins just as young teenagers rock's most fanatical audience are getting out of school.

However this slot, olhcr reasons top. As the main income source of most photographers, the pictures that appear in the press raise most of the difficult questions about the practice of being in at the action. They still say that one photograph is worth a thousand words. Certainly these are the hm-ges that condition most people's opinions. The questjon of balance is even harder in pictures than in words.

Articles about the Cambodian refugees might refer to the There was a moment when victory was nearly theirs but, being winged, it went. Sir Kenneth quoted in Greek the rallying call to the men of Athens "All is at stake!" flatly, without If I speak it meaning fully, it makes me cry Ah, once more. With feeling. For those more at home in the future there is Batllestar Galactica (ITV). Truly this is the fruit of one man's vision a Glen A.

Larson Production, written by Glen A. Larson, produced by Glen A. Larson and featuring the stirring Battlestar Galactica Theme (by Glen A. Larson and Stu Phillips) and the catchy number Love, Love, Love Yah (by John Ta'aglia, Sue Collins and Glen A. Larson).

For late arrivals, the mechanical Cylons (Whirr Clank aided by the treacherous Bald Tyre have destroyed a whole galaxy peopled by bit part actors. Everything is destroyed except the background music, ever the last to go, and the survivors decide to return to mother earth Hey, you guys, what's going on Let's get outa here Battlestar Galactica has the twin virtues of economy and humanity. It is evidently shot in an amusement arcade (Wham! Splat!) and gives employment to old actors you have heard of, who would otherwise be keeling over on golf courses, interrupting play, and young actors you have never heard of, most'ly called things like Randy and Chip. There is a dagget called Muffet, a mechanical repellent coyness which one would dearly love to feed to Barbara Woodhouse, and a moppet called Boxey who asks cute questions like, Why does people want to hurt us The dagget and moppet have, some will be pleased to hear, been seized by a big, black insect with bulgy eyes. Glen A.

Larson, the multi-talented man, is also responsible for Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (ITV). In this context I quote a dissatisfied KINGSTON 546-1 265 HITCHCOCK'S GATfattAYFABit CINEMA, MAY FAIR HOTEL, STRATTON ST. 483 2031 Final Week at GATE, NOTTING HILL Continuing at GATE, MAYFAIR Wolffling Petersen's GATb sss I CINEMA NOTTING HILL ncn I a conscience-stricken, fellow-fugitive and Donald McKillop even gives the cliche-figure of the fatuous cleric a puzzled humanity. We shall hear more, I fancy, of Mr McClenaghan. RAHRADIO 4 Meirion Bowen BBC SO Atherton THIS PROM provided in the first half a reminiscence of last autumn's Stravinsky festival.

The prime begetter of the festival, David Atherton, was once more at the helm. Aided and abetted by some distinguished playing from the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the pianist Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich, he demonstrated once again the composer's progress from his days as a bright young thing in St Petersburg at the beginning of the century, to the maturity represented by his music in the Twenties. Perhaps aptly, Stravinsky's short fantasy for orchestra, Fireworks (1909) from Dukas's The Sorcerer's Apprentice conjures every kind of brilliant orchestral sonority with precocious skill. Not only this, the work never gets out of control and a real magician seems to be in charge. No wonder Diaghilev, upon hearing its premier, felt impelled to commission from Stravinsky the now famous ballet scores which rocketed the composer into the public eye.

Stravinsky retained his love for the Russian ballet tradition long after he left Russia and it was worthwhile here being reminded of his allegiance to Tchaikovsky. His orchestration of an cntra'acte, from the Sleeping Beauty one omitted by the composer after it appeared boring to the Tzar has plenty of Tchaikov-skian touches on some of Stravinsky's fingerprints too. It's not much more than a curiosity, but it was instructive to hear it again, with its solo violin Arabesques so firmly and coherently execu ted Dy Koaney rnena. Exiled from his fatherland, Stravinsky seemed to become a different composer. In reality though, works like The Concerto for Piano and Wind, completed in 1924, only focussed more strongly his creative personality and'direc-tion.

The various gestures and ingredients of the baroque concerto here acquire a new ritualistic garb, with the piano given a context of pungent wind writing. Stephen Bishop-Kovecevich had the sureness of fingerwork, the clarity and forcefulness of attack to match the astringent sounds coming from the wind section of the BBC orchestra. It was entirely invigorating. After the int2rval, Hoist's The Planets was something of a disappointment. It seemed as if Atherton had decided to take apart and had not found enough time to put it together again.

side for which we have no images. The other big story was Iran. This time we certainly had images from both sides and the features of both the Shah and Khomeini must by now be engraved on everyone's memory. Second prize for portraits went to Daily Mail photographer Christopher Barham for his haggard image of the Shah in Panama haunted face of a man without a future." The pictures from Khomeini's Robert WIGMORE HALL Andrew Keener Schwarzkopf AT BEST the illumination offered by a Masterclass is twofold while the younger artist leaves the platform with new insight, the audience will come away more aware than before of the deepest of the master's artistic personality. The most acute danger with such a public set up is that the suggestions offered will yield carbon copy results a pale imitation of the real thing.

With a minimum of demonstration, such dangers were remote from the second of Dr Elizabeth Schwarzkopf's Mastcrclasses at the Wigmore Hall. More vividly than is usual in such surroundings Dr Schwarzkopf made you aware that the deepest insights come from the most tried and tested principles. In Mozart's Come Scoglio from Cosi Fan Tutte, for instance (with the Norwegian Bente Marcussen a vibrantly rich soprano) Use the orchestra. It gives you the exact expression you need at any time." Or, in the same aria That phrase comes from another world Listen to the sound you make as the key changes." Some of the most potent communication of the evening came in Schumann's Wid-mung from the young English soprano Christine Taylor, whose ravishingly covered quality at the words Du Bist die Ruh prompted a tart observation that certain scholars imperious look round the hall should keep in mind the difference between sung and spoken language when they criticise a singer's diction. However beautiful a voice, it cannot stay beautiful if it sings every vowel as it would be spoken," she said.

Dr Schwarzkopf is often alarmingly perceptive amazingly quick to sense momentary stepping out of character between one phrase and the next. Charm, of which there is plenty, is invariably at thi; furthest of a paint pursued to its destination even if stops along the way are frequent. The appreciative Ja from (the chest register) is rare and warm, Bring your sleeping bag," said the voic at the other end of the line when I phoned the hall th.i previous morning. Too right; when I left concentration on both sides of the hall was at its most acute, talk on the platform as animated as ever. THEATRE UPSTAIRS Michael Billington Submariners I HAPPENED to go to a reading last year at the Warehouse of a play by Tom McClenaghan called Sailors.

Since it was far better than historical and political ori-gins of the problem in the Vietnam war. A photograph does not. And you are unlikely to find a balancing photograph alongside it. In this exhibition you can. The photo which won the United Nations Award shows the olhcr side.

It's by Leonid Iakutin of the Soviet Union, and shows the process of rebuilding in Vietnam, people working the paddy fields, rifles stacked in readiness should they be attacked. The reader, 13-year-old Helen McGraw. "Buck Rogers did wot stand on a bucket, it was a flight pilot's hat and, if you had looked closely, you would have seen a decomposing body beside it." COVENT GARDEN John Rosselli Rheingold THE MINES of Nibelheim are declaring redundancies. In the Gdansk shipyards the giants want their reward. The gods of East and West seem to b-a a-lotter.

The world the theatre exists in is much as usual and so we need' Wagner's Ring of the Nibe-lung, which gives us the world in its modern epoch as both a poem of growth and a whale of a show. Gotz Friedrich's production makes a welcome return to Covent Garden after a year off. Its mark in Das Rheingold, both on stage and in the pit (where the orchestra under Sir Colin Davis sounds rehearsed to freshest pitch), is transparency. Of the four evenings that make up the work this prologue is thickest in action, cjuickest in transition. The great merit of Davis's and Friedrich's rendering is that all is made explicit.

Musical development calls up movement and gesture-usually clear. Giant mirrors reflect from the bottom of the Rhine or the gold mine much of Wagner's cinematic vision. There are costs. The spring Sir Colin gets in such things as the cries of Rheingold sounds f.t times held on a tight rein the score so far comes across as a siring of vivid incidents, though later evenings may show the full rainbow arch spreading itself out. Friedrich's interpretation of the work has developed sines we first saw it.

I can't recall that Alberich was originally made so ape-like a figure, with fur collar and Christy Minstrel make-up too echoes of the film Cabaret (or rather of the expressionist cartooning that inspired it), none too helpful to the experienced Rolf Kiihne in bringing out the daemonic stature of the world-coveting dwarf. Loge too in his tattered red curtain, bow tie and waistcoat, is more openly an industrial revolution figure, a parasite bohemian journalist perhaps. Robert Tear sings this part with the clarity of diction and intonation it needs. So does Yvonne Minton, whose Fricka has not been heard here before either so too John Dobson (Mime). These are performances in which acting and singing enhance each other.

There are familiar but vivid giants (Robert Lloyd and Matti Talminen), a new Donner (Barry Mora, a pure dark-voiced baritone from New Zealand) and a Wotan of much authority (Donald Mclntyre). The cycle promises well 1 "To be seen at all costs" Financial Times "Sian Phillips is devastating. Denis Lawson sure as hell can sing and dance" Time Out "Rodgers Hart's greatest hit" Daily Mail FIRST NIGHT TELEVISION Nancy Banks-Smith The Greeks IT IS clear from the first programme of The Greeks (BBC-1) that the ancient Greeks were, as you might have expected, all very old indeed. Under ample, grizzled whiskers you can find, for instance, Freddie Jones being Socrates and wondering, more than once, "How should men live? As long as possible, apparently. This parade of elderly parties cuts across the clear intention of the scries, which is "to find a sense of kinship, a bond of flesh and blood" between the Greeks and us.

Great favourites of mine on radio once were Frank and Ernest. Frank asked the frank questions and Ernest gave the earnest answers and their proposition was that God is just like us, though if He is just like me I do not wish to know Him. In pursuit of the proposition that the Greeks are just like us, Christopher Burstall and Sir Kenneth Dover go to Delphi, Olympia, Mycenae or bob about on the sea at Salamis, the one asking the questions to which the other knows the answers. How important is fair-mindedness? It's what life is all about." You hesitate to interrupt two people so happy and busy, otherwise you might debate the truth of this too. Twenty-five minutes into the film Mr Burstall is still explaining how difficult their job was.

This consideration seems to have carried undue weight with them for they have made every effort to popularise the subject and, perhaps, patronise the viewer: a great deal of orchestral underlining: "Agamemnon (Boom!) Zeus dramatisation, newsreels, anecdotes and the repetition twice of anything needing teeth. Great Piano Organ sale Come to Chappell's Piano and Organ sale and save 's. PIANOS Bargains Irani Uprights and Grands. New and Chappell Factory Recon ditioned, demonstration models, rental returns. British and loroign makes.

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01-401 277 Tear as Loge Covent Garden many new plays that get a full-scale production, I was surprised to hear no more of it. But now Mr McClenaghan has followed it up with Submariners at the Theatre Upstairs which turns out to be racy, entertaining, well-structured with only the occasional twinge of glibness. We are in the Chief Petty Officer's mess on a British Polaris submarine during an eight-week patrol. The pivotal figure is Roach, the mess-mate who wants out and who feigns gayness to get his discharge. Not content with that he tries to encourage one of the officers, Webb, who has a discontented wife to throw a wobbly and join him on the race to dry land.

He also implicates the other officers, a fitness freak and a promotion-hungry thickie, in his plan either by making violent passes at them or by sapping their morale with tales of submarine disasters. Even the bovine chaplain-cum-entertain-ments officer is an unwilling party to his obsessive escape-scheme. All-male plays in confined settings are not usually my favourite form of theatre. But this one kept me engrossed partly because the author knows what he is writing about (down to bingo-sessions over the Tannoy and the volcanic irritation of things like pencil-tapping or card-shuffling in a small space) and partly becase he conveys his message through the interstices of the plot. Roach is the archetypal brainy-boy who ends up in a dead-end job because he wants to be an applauded subversive.

But he also, quite legitimately, becomes the mouthpiece for some pertinent points about hushed-up naval disasters and about the long-term dangers of protracted submersion. all Mr McClenaghan's surprises take one off-guard (it's easy to guess who's going to put a toe out of the closet) and, although he lampoons Morning Departure type heroics, his red-alert scenes are very similar to the kind of radar-blipping numbers we know from old British movies. But it remains a swift and funny play with some very good lines beats me how you ever joined up "Have you ever been to Antonia Bird's production also contains a cracking performance from Philip Davis as the malcontented Roach that oscillates between toothy charm and scholarly rancour. David Beames lends good support as MW Preview 25 Sept Direct from The Half Moon ALBERY THEATRE St. Martin's LaneWCZ Box Office: 01-836 3878 Credit Cards: 01-379 6565 Si ishepvm outer space I The acting is first rate." DailyExpress catches the mood of those rock'n'roll daysnNemofthewbrid "Htcuvt or spaced out: alanarkin "Simon" madeSnekahn axon.

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