Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 27

THE EDMONTON JOURNAL, Thursday, August 18, 1983 C7 Pulse Furry bedroom slipper captures crowd J. fcr Pygmalion to be aired on pay-TV Roger Mara and the Mara Berries The Holy Ghostly Mathematics Electric Gunfighters Fringe Theatre Syr yeOMONTON By LIZ NICHOLLS Journal Staff Writer Is that a Mara Berry I see before my eyes? I know, I know sensory evidence has had a rough time in philosophical circles. But what sane adult would have predicted that an audience of 30, at 1 1 p.m., would be watching what appeared to be a blue furry bedroom slipper attached to a gloved hand? Roger Mara (and the Mara Berries, Design Workshop) might well be the inventor of the raunchy finger puppet show; to my knowledge no one else has claimed the title. The jokes are truly awful, but you have to admit that the concept explores new dimensions in one-man entertainment. I could swear that people were laughing The late-late show at the Fringe (Chinook, 1:30 a.m.) is, appropriately enough, a ghost story, Sam Shepard's The Holy Ghostly, directed by Karen Redford.

The ghastly Ghostly comes complete with witch, firelight, meantime, his gravel voice is perfect for Shepard, and his combination of wheedling, whining and exasperation give the production its gruesome comic edge. A little less light and a little more spookiness, and this could well be the antidote to Ovaltine and cookies that the world has been waiting for. The 69th Street Frenchmen have eliminated the problem of learning lines in Mathematics by Hrant Alianak (Acacia Hall). Only objects appear, to a sound track of American broadcasts. In attache case and soap flakes is embodied (or rather, embalmed) "your average Canadian couple." It's a whimsical stage device, but hardly a subtle idea.

The other Frenchmen offering is Electric Gunfighters. Michael Charrois and David Cassel assisted by three blank TV screens, explore the effects of Westerns addiction in a series of the classic scenes. There are some fine moments; the actors manage an agreeable fusion of the guileless and the theatrical. gunshots, murder, corpses, howls, etc. The monologue on drumming and the touching tale of a dairy farmer turned Hershey bar salesman optional in most ghost stories are organic, not merely decorative here.

The narrative connections in all this may not seem important to you at that time of the morning, but the dialogue crackles. Too bad the audience can't always hear it: Wendell Smith as Pop and Eric Kramer as his kid Ice aim at creating atmosphere, and they succeed but frequently at the expense of the lines. Somebody should probably tell Wendell Smith he smokes too much, but in the By BOB REMINGTON Journal Staff Writer BANFF First Choice pay-TV has plunged headfirst into the kind of theatrical programming that killed Channel with the unveiling here this week of a TV version of Pygmalion. But after a world premiere screening Tuesday night at the Banff Television Festival, one comes away with the impression this version of the George Bernard Shaw play will work on pay-TV thanks to the lunatic-like rantings of Peter O'Toole. O'Toole plays Prof.

Henry Hig-gins, a linguist who transforms the Cockney-accented street urchin Eliza Doolittle (Margot Kidder) into a right proper English speaking lady. Pygmalion, popularized on film and in a musical as My Fair Lady, is the type of stage production that met with little success on Channel which went into receivership earlier this year after just three months on the air. But O'Toole, often displaying the histrionics of a crazed hyena, virtually takes over the production to the point of popularizing it for a mass audience. And that's what will probably make this work on pay-TV. Peter O'Toole Me a crazed hyena Kidder, known to millions as Superman's girlfriend, is more than just an audience draw.

She is a jewel as Doolittle and makes the viewer quickly forget her as a stereotyped Lois Lane. Kidder was recently married in France to director Philipe De Broca. It may come as a surprise to some that a production like this is running on the purveyors of the Playboy channel. But First Choice president Don MacPherson said the pay network wasn't worried about airing the kind of production that contributed to the demise of the cultural network, Channel. "We are a total entertainment TV magazine.

People don't read Maclean's cover-to-cover, they select. And this is the type of production that fits nicely into our total package concept." First Choice plans to air Pygmalion in September. ERNESTINE ANDERSON NOW TILL AUG. 29 NYLONS SEPT.5-SEPT.10 OSCAR PETERSON SEPT.22-OCT. 1 TV Toil i VI HO wuR Do TV viewers read? Show Tickets and Dinner Show Package available at all Bass Outlets and at the Northwoods Inn BANFF Television critics have been described as those who come down from the hill after a battle and shoot the wounded.

But here, on Wednesday, they held their fire. Instead of blasting away at the industry, four critics at the Banff Television Festival turned the guns on themselves by changing the topic of their seminar from "Is There Anything Good On Television?" to "Is There Anything Good About Television Critics?" "The role of critic is becoming increasingly important with the continued complexity of television and growing fragmentation of audiences," said Les Brown, editor of Channels, a U.S. TV industry magazine. The panel agreed that, unlike a drama critic who can hurt a production by influencing a potentially small audience, TV critics have little impact on viewerships that range in the millions. Some panel members moaned about the inability to pre-screen many programs due to resistance by some networks to show programs in advance.

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