The Daily Telegraph from London, Greater London, England • 12

a a a a a a a a a in a 12 THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 1987 1 THE ARTS FILMS Tuning in to nostalgia THE JOY of Woody Allen's Radio Days is that there are no psychiatristse. meaning conundrums is a rare film: Woody Allen is enjoying himself without hesitation, deviation or interruption. "Radio Days" is a Forties' frolic through childhood fantasies powered by steam radio. Those were the days when Mom, Dad, Aunt Bea, Uncle Abe, Aunt Ceil, Ruthie and littie Joe (little Woody incarnated in knickerbockers) alleviated their mundane existence in 4:42 ing healthy Rockway, to the and New wireless. York, imaginatively by Strange listen- how stim0 ulating it seems now compared 9 with television as moving wallpaper.

Allen has made an affectionate family, of life, centring 1939-45 War, the Masked Avenger and Radio City Hall. The vignettes are precise, deliciously observed and, as with "Hannah and Her we get underneath the skin. Bea (Dianne Wiest) is the unmarried aunt whose Prince Charmings sadly always something wrong with them: they're re married, afraid Martians or wear white socks with their tuxedos. Grandma is the only woman in her 70s whose bosom is still growing; Father is a failed entrepreneur with 6,000 get well-cards in the closet because "there aren't that many sick people in Uncle Abe doesn't take Aunt Ceil to nightclubs and drink champagne out of her slipper because he can't that much liquid. So Ceil listens to ventriloquists on the radio.

The stars they visualise Allen Radio Days (PG) Odeon Haymarket Evil Dead II (18) Cannons Haymarket, Oxford Street, Charing Cross Road, Chelsea. The Secret of My Success (PG) Empire Leicester Square The Boy Who Could Fly (PG) Plaza Piccadilly can materialise. His invisible presence as narrator acts like a two-way mirror between the front audience in Rockaand the studio performers. He makes the most of the tantalising "if only you could see them" teaser, mixing a potent cocktail of glamour and venality. Many of the vignettes, which are really picture postcards, Allen extracts from that kosher family album, have no dramatic pay-off.

They are sustained by charm alone dais it is yet another tribute skill that in this, his 15th film, such insubstantial stuff should be what dreams of entertainment are made. Without quite being self-indulgent, Allen shamelessly indulges himself in nostalgia. Days" was not intended as a Felliniesque indictment of radio, although we are comically nudged about what gives pleasure. There is no reason why Allen, as the man most overloaded with talent in American cinema, should have to act as a guru to the thinking cinema-goer. "Radio Days" is FREE FIVERS CELEBRATE OUR 200TH STORE OPENING Vouch Supercentres £5 DIY gift voucher every time you spend £50 in until 28th June B8Q are proud to announce that we have just opened our 200th DIY Supercentre.

To celebrate we are giving away a $5 DIY gift voucher every time you spend $50 at B8Q. This offer applies at every one of our 200 DIY Supercentres. You will receive one voucher for every multiple of $50 you spend in one transaction, between 19th and 28th June 1987. Ask in store for full details. SHOP LATE TIL 8 A MOM TO SAT PAIN TO also open in SCOTLAND 9AM TO (PI SON FREE BO RING.

01-200 0200 DIY 90 You can do it when you it! ART ephemeral; it is also pure, simple pleasure. What could be more deliciously intelligent? GIVEN that there is now cinema genre to which you have to take a sick bag, Evil Dead II is almost a respectable attempt at comic horror. Director Sam Raimi, who was raised on horror comics, made "Evil Dead" which was the top rental video in 1983, earning $15 million and celebrity as case during nasties crackdown from which the Department of Public Prosecutions forced to step down. "Evil Dead II" is too ludicrous to be subversive. The is negligible- -typical deserted house taken over by common or garden (a girl is abducted by a tree) demons.

Nothing a man armed with a power drill cannot cope with. The on moral of the story is not, to scream; Mr Raimi has designated open mouths as ideal receptacles for flying eyeballs. WOULD that there was something sO provocative in The Secret of My Success, vehicle for Michael J. Fox which is sickly rather than material. The secret of Michael J.

Fox's success has been that he looks young and is irrepressibly bumptious. This is a yuppie farrago about corporate raids and corpulent businessmen in He's the from Kansas which Fox, plays the puppy. wants to make it to the top in New York in a couple of weeks, which is about how long the film lasts. Since Fox seems a appointed boy who will never grow up, one of least successful gambits is his romance with the doe-eyed Helen Slater; it's as Presenter Tony Roberts and guest Dianne Wiest (Aunt Bea) in "Radio Days" distasteful as Peter Pan petting with Wendy. THE MODERN Peter Pan is handicapped, he can fly but not speak.

In The Boy Who Could Fly director and writer Nick Castle has tackled the problem of children who are "different" quite bravely. Eric's (Jay Underwood) parents were killed in an air crash, since when he THEATRE Pinter's 'Lover' eases the pain THE VIENNA English theatre, a company which has been producing plays English in Vienna for nearly 25 years, has brought its double-bill of early Harold Pinter plays to the Young Vic. A Slight Ache, written for radio in 1959, preceded by The Lover, which was first seen on TV in 1963. If "A Slight Ache" seems less effective than its partner, this is probably because it remains very firmly a play for voices, gaining little from its transfer to a visual medium. Edward Flora, a middle-aged, middleclass couple in their elegant country house, are disturbed by the presence of an old tramp who stands at the bottom of the lane with a tray of matches for sale.

But there are virtually no passers-by in this remote spot, so why is he there? Who or what is he? Edward, who has exhibited a manic ferocity in his method of trapping and killing a wasp at the breakfast table, insists that Flora summon the tramp to his study to be questioned. But his interview 1 with the tramp, who remains passive and silent throughout, does not go as expected. Nor, for that matter, does Flora's behaviour. The slight ache behind the eyes with which Edward had begun his Timewatch offered three interesting short films, all investigating ways in which the past and the present are related. The subjects were extremely topical- educational standards, inner city life and our perception of history.

However (perhaps because these subjects are so there was something tendentious about the first and last. Suggesting an obvious parallel with current proposals, the education film looked at the mid 19th-century attempt to raise minimum standards of reading, writing and arithmetic through a Revised Code. This was imposed by Robert Low, Education Minister in 1862 who was presented as a sort of prolehating albino Gradgrind. Perhaps he was. The evils of the code were insisted uponlearning by rote, the loss of most subjects except the 3 Rs, anxious teachers paid only by fearsome inspectors.

There were lots of old photos of miserable children and some (rather, weak) dramatised shots of children in costume duly reciting their tables. But at. least they knew their tables, if one can say that without sounding like Gradgrind. IN Times of Change (BBC 2) turnover half million pounds a year sounds like success. But the other half of the story is of a City of London broker turned cocaine dealer.

It was one of many which crammed a 20-minute special report on Capital Radio this week, broadcast the day after the record £9 million cocaine haul in Harley Street. There was "David," an economist and consultant of Third World economic issues. He first encountered coke when a business meeting with a Wall Street banker ended and he was offered a cocktail or a line of cocaine. They had both, with the man from Wall Street taking out his little sachet from his waistcoat pocket and chopping the lines on his glass-topped table with a gold American Express card. Over the next 10 years David was to spend £180,000 on cocaine, justifying to himself the outlay of £100 a day by believing it would make A MAN business with a A Freudian slip-up at the National? WITH this year's Artist's Eye Although I refuse to accept exhibition, the education the idea that the "Artist's Eye" department of National Gallery series helps us in any small way of really has achieved some- to understand or appreciate the thing quite new- in the pictures in the National Gallery, fields of museum display and of do think we may learn education: it has contrived to something about Lucien Freud.

render some of the greatest paintings in the National Gal- almost First, his flawless. taste in He paintings is lery invisible, and at the same obviously time to tell us nothing whatso- had a wonderful time making ever about them. At the his selection, and took his task ment's invitation, Mr Lucien very seriously. Some departof his Freud has been allowed to choices are highly predictable: remove masterpieces from for a man who paints flesh as the galleries and to hang them sensuously and obsessively as in semi-darkness, jammed so Freud, Ingres's "'Madame closely together that each indi- was a natural, as Moitessier" vidual picture is actually dimin- were Velazquez, "The Toilet of ished as a work of art. Not only Venus" (The Rokeby Venus) that; the room in which they and Rubens's "Samson and hang does not look as it is Two Rembrandts, meant to, but plain awful." "An Old Man in and "Margaretha de Geer" It is understandable that perhaps throw Freud wished to see the pic-' Freud's some light on portraits of his own tures hung in natural light; but mother.

the reality of the high skylights at the National Gallery and the I admit I was accident of our black June at the number of Constables, weather means that half the pic- and at the choice Whistler's tures, particularly those in cor- beautiful 'Miss Cicely ners, are lost to sight on any but Alexander: Harmony in Grey the sunniest of days. One may and Still, what does it sympathise with his idealistic all prove? decision to exhibit the paintings without I do not at bottom believe labels, but when I vis- that Freud does ited the not like Italian lic kept rushing and none in the were frustrated pub- paintings, though a exhibition; there forwards between the paintings think nor do I and that some future critic the introductory wall label, will where a list of artists and titles be able to draw any could be found. conclusion from the fact that 1 he appears to think he is an aeroplane. Milly (Lucy Deakins) moves in next door with her brother Louis (Fred Savage), an eightalready in training as a crap and mother (Bonnie Bedelia), in training on the computer order to get back to work in the Eighties. Father has committed suicide.

is that kind who Milly befriends Eric and what likeable about this film is it extols children being to each other. The ones aren't, like the neighbours have a Dobermann called and are auditioning for parts in "Evil Dead get Picture: ALASTAIR MUIR a Simon Williams and Judy Buxton in "The Lover" a beautifully and precisely written account of a loving relationship gone sour. Simon Williams brings his polished technique to bear on Richard's many changes of mood, and Judy Buxton is an affecting Sarah. Malcolm Ward, who later transforms himself TELEVISION 100 years of education What was tendentious was the constant suggestion that insisting on minimum standards (and inspection) is of itself bad and necessarily something of an establishment plot. It may have been in the 19th century, but there were hints that present proposals are heading in a similar, evil direction; this seems to me anachronistic and unproven.

Of course we want our children to learn far more than they did under the Revised Code and to learn with pleasure. But there is a crisis of basic literacy in this country, and a need for desperate remedies, if having the 3 Rs drummed into you is a desperate remedy. The dreaded Revised Code did raise standards, though the film didn't insist upon the point: as one contributor said, by the 1890s only 2 per cent of people getting married were unable to sign their names on the marriage day turns into a kind of stroke. He collapses, but recovers sufficiently to have the matchseller's tray thrust into his arms by Flora as she leads the old tramp off for lunch. The sense of unease and lurking, unexplained danger which Harold Pinter evokes in such masterly fashion in his finest plays is so palpable and gripping that one is given no opportunity to ask questions.

In "A Slight however, despite Barry Foster's impeccable performance as Edward, the tension is intermittent, and the ending seems uncharacteristically glib. "'The Lover" is a much more interesting piece, about a youngish married couple and their sexual game-playing. Richard appears not to mind that Sarah's lover visits her on most afternoons while he, Richard, is toiling away at his city office. But we, the audience, are disconcerted when the lover first arrives (and delighted the playwright's splendid do joke shortly before the lover's appearance) and Sarah is dismayed by his unexpected callousness. To say more would be as unfair as to give away the identity of an Agatha Christie murderer, for "The Lover" is, in its way, a whodunit as well as register, whereas 20 years pre20 per cent could not, in England today, in a recent survey, nearly 50 per cent of young people could not follow a simple bus timetable or fire safety instructions.

In the last item the historian David Cannadine developed various interesting points about the way our sense of history is formed by our own contemporary perceptions but managed to be very annoying. He said that the lack of conviction and direction in Britain today is reflected in current history writing: "It is difficult for a nation with no sense of its own future to have a sense of its Felled by his own argument, I would say: by the same token we each tend to view society from the perspective of our own corners. Perhaps there's a lack, in university history departments, of conviction, direction and a sense of RADIO Capital stories him more able to make more money. There was "Mark," who runs a construction company, spends £15,000 on his habit, and has his own bottle and spoon for a "quick toot" before meetings. There was "Edward," sounding in acute nasal distress and talking of the "powder room" nickname for the men's lavatory in some City offices.

And there was the policeman who said there was no evidence of a drugs epidemic in the City. The Capital story, which also used quotations from a CBI report, 'Danger, Drugs at Work," seemed to offer direct evidence in contradiction. This is a local radio station with a well-earned and hardwon reputation for knowing bits Hitler bit their come-uppance. Victoria Mather into the smelly old matchseller of "A Slight contributes an engaging portrait of John. Both plays are smoothly directed by Kevin Billington in an adaptable and attractively designed set by John Halle.

Charles Osborne the future. But not every part of British society suffers from this. There's evidence-like it or not- a strong and widespread sense of purpose and identity. David Cannadine's clear argument was badly served by cutaways to stills and film clips which only distracted. The item as well have been a radio maicht Contrariwise the London street item, which might have seemed short on the usual ingredients for a film, made of some still black, and white photographs few talking heads a really memorable portrait of a Notting Hill community in the 1950s.

I was confused by Eight Thousand Six Hundred and Twenty Battery the first of the new drama series, Boogie Outlaws (BBC-2). The plot, about a rock group on run, was a bit bumpy and the mood seemed uncertain. Opening with a Blade Runner-style shot of a futuristic cityscape, it offered a touch of art movie, a touch of Monty Python, a touch sitcom and touch of social comment. Despite, its professionalism, think this series has found its own idiom. Minette Marrin ing frenzy of the introduction subsides, is the quality of the reporting.

It takes time and perserverance, contacts and tact, to the raw material. go on to construct documentary feature which will propose and support a particular argument, which may well be at variance with the official version, takes editorial skill and good judgment. These are not scare stories. The Capital investigation into the death of a social worker a couple of years back uncovered a whole trail of hazard and ineptitude from which anyone. listening would learn.

This week's special report on drugs in the City of London was there to remind us that drugs are not only the concern of dropouts and derelicts. They are a part of the new mercantile and entrepreneurial story, an amazing expensive habit for people who make vast sums of money. Gillian Reynolds The only point I can see in the "Artist's Eye" series is to discover the reasons for the invited artist's choice of paintings. At best, these might illuminate something about the works of art; at the very least they will tell us something about the artist. But--no fool Freud--he will speak neither about his choice of pictures nor about his installation of them: "I have been asked to give reasons for he writes, but "the paintings themselves are the reasons." In other words, like most of us, he picked what he liked.

When this is understood, whatever educational benefits the exercise may be supposed to confer seem to me considerably reduced. There is no particular reason for hanging Constable's "Haywain" to Cezanne's "The Painter's And, anyway, couldn't we, just as well discover which old masters Lucien Freud likes in a pamphlet? Or an interview? lecture with good colour slides? left out Titian altogether to make room for a second-string Turner and Vuillard's "Madame Wormser and her On the basis of the present exhibition and of several in the past, I think we have to ask why the National Gallery continues with the series. It belittles the pictures chosen by treating them like bubblegum cards that can be shuffled and rearranged at whim; it leaves the permanent galleries looking dreadful with gaping holes where the pictures should be hanging; and as an exercise in public relations it is unnecessary. The National Gallery should not need to attract visitors for any reason other than to see the permanent collections hanging in wellmaintained, well-lit, welllabelled galleries. After, had leaving the stroll "Artist's a through those but that is another story, one that I had better not commence here.

Richard Dorment CONCERT Four of the best THE BERLIN Philharmonic is widely acknowleged to be the of world's foremost orchestra. Four of its leading string finale's players have now formed the Philharmonia Quartet, Berlin, less and may well soon be considered the most eminent group in They this field if one is to judge by their superb playing at the Wigmore Hall on Wednesday. vein Their programme culminated "King in a performance of Beethoven's before Opus 127 Quartet that showed like both thee warm, euphonious sound four players make and also their deep under- liance standing of the needs also Beethoven. I seldom recall that that hearing attended an account so closely to the piece, of this work ing many dynamic markings, distinguishing quite clearly between all forte and double forte, piano here, and double piano, or one that 4, was so exact in obeying note values. sense played In consequence the extraordialways nary nature and originality of music, the work was even more evident than usual, most noticeably in the many abrupt changes of tempo and mood.

as Most arrestingly one felt the hear improvisatory nature of the middle movements, and was amazed by that startling stroke genius when the rhythm switches to six-eight for the coda. The Berlin group had been no successful with Szymanowski's Second Quartet. captured the elevated, ecstatic feeling of the first movement, very much in the of the composer's opera, Roger" written the year this quartet, the Bartokstarkness of the Scherzo (contrasting its Delius-like middle section), and the brilof With Ravel an influence, it was obvious the "Zeitgeist" was affectthe composer in this late dating from 1927. Berliners had mastered its technical difficulties, but as in Haydn's Opus 64, No which opened the programme, there was never of technique being disfor its own sake; it was at the service the and that is how it should this showing, only the Borodin and perhaps the Takacs Quartets are in the same class the Philharmonia. We must them again.

soon Alan Blyth BCC and Tony Macarthur for Allied Entertainments Musical Director STUTZ BEAR CATS WAYNE DOBSON LONDON PALLADIUM TEL: 01-437 7373 STALLS: £25.00 £15.00 £10.00 ROYAL CIRCLE: £25.00 £15.00 UPPER CIRCLE: £10.00 £7.50 MONDAY 6 JULY UNTIL SATURDAY 11 JULY at 8 pm CC accepted also Keith Prowse 01-741 8989 Albemarte 01-580 3141 AM. Lashmar 01-493 4731 plus booking fee of its patch well enough to bring on the air voices which disagree with official verdicts. In the past their stories about racial harassment in Tower Hamlets, suicides in Earls Court, violence on the North Peckham housing estate, to name but three, have brought the inside of what is happening to the listener. The style, particularly for listeners who are used to the more measured tones of and "File on can be off putting. It is bold, dramatic, terse (or brash, melodramatic and reeking with the ominous, for those who do not care for it).

The aim is to grab attention as the nightly news magazine The Way It Is rolls on its way. What consistently holds the attention, once the drum-beat- ART GALLERIES BARBICAN ART GALLERY. 01-638 ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS. 4141 ext. 30.

Level 8 Barbican Centre, PICCADILLY. 01-734 9052 Open daily EC2. ANSEL photographer 10-6 inc. Sun. (reduced rate Sun.

PARADISE LOST British until 1.45) SUMMER EXHIBITION Romantics 1935-55. Until 21 July Tues- and JEWELS OF THE ANCIENTS Sat Sun Bk hol (closes 28 June). Closed Mon except Bk his. Adm. £2.50 conc.

£1.25. SPINK. King Street, St. James's, W.1. BRITISH LIBRARY.

Gt. Russell 20TH CENTURY BRITISH PAINTWC1. WONDERS OF CREATION: INGS WATER-COLOURS. Closing natural history drawings in the today. 9.30-5.30.

British Library. Mon-Sat 10-5. Sun 2.30-6. Ends 12 July. Adm.

Free. TATE GALLERY, Millbank. SW1. BRITISH MUSEUM. Russell St.

MARK ROTHKO. Until 31 Aug. Adm. WC1. DRAWING IN ENGLAND £2.50.

WINIFRED NICHOLSON. Until FROM HILLIARD TO HOGARTH. 2 Aug. GEORGE PRICE BOYCE. Adm Mon-Sat 105.

Sun 2.30-6. Until 16 Aug. THE CLORE GALLERY Recorded info 01 580 1786. FOR THE TURNER COLLECTION. Adm.

free. Wkdays Suns. ESKENAZI LTD. Foxglove House (opp. Recorded info.

01-821 7128. Old Bond St), 166 Piccadilly, wi. 01- 5464. Works of Art from the THE JEWELLERY OF RENE Tang Until 3 July. Mon Fri LALIQUE.

Goldsmiths' Hall, Foster Sats 10-1. Lane, EC2. 28. May-24 July Mon-Sat, 10.30-5. Adm.

£3. 606 8971. FINE ART SOCIETY 148 New Bond St, W.1. 01-629 5116. QUEEN VICTORIA H.

PATTERSON 19 Albemarle also WILLIAM SIMPSON 1823-1899. Street, London WIX SHA. Tel: 01 629 4119. SUMMER EXHIBITION Recent MARTYN GREGORY. TRADE WINDS Works by Members of the NEW TO CHINA.

Historical paintings relat- ENGLISH ART CLUB. Club. 24th ing to the Far East. 10 June 4th July. Mon-Fri 9.30-6.

Sat. am- London 6pm. 34 S.W.1. Bury Street, St. James's, 9.30-1.

(01-839 3731). YOUNG ARTISTS from N. Ireland. MUSEUM OF MANKIND, Burlington THE SOLOMON GALLERY, 10 Dover Gardens, London WI. TORAJA: Street.

Weekdays 9.30 Sats 104. Creating an Indonesian Rice Barn. Mon-Sat 10-5. Sun 2.306. Adm free.

ZAMANA GALLERY. Cromwell Gar RICHARD GREEN, New Bond Street, dens, SW7. 584 6612. A SEARCH FOR W.1. 493 3939.

BRITISH MARINE EXCELLENCE: The Khan Award PAINTINGS. Mon. Fri. 10-6. Sats.

for Architecture. Until 26 July. Tue Sun.