... A BOOK WITH CHAPTERS IN IT IS tv camera intimacy sufficient to create drama out of a stodgy slice of trivial life? Jack Pulman must have assumed that it is when he wrote this attempt to magnify a few common enough events in an inconsequential family into something significant. But his play (BBC-tv, Fri day December 8) lacked meaning and said nothing. Heavy doses of long-winded nostalgia ...

... BUT PLAY LACKS THE FINAL SPARK Big night out for BBC's wardrobe dept. ADVENTURE STORY Jf A LEX AND E R THE GREAT would provide impressive material for any playwright to work on, and Terence Rattigan, in the TV production of his play (BBC- tv Monday, June 12) has certainly not shirked his task. Possibly the very immensity of the theme carries its own dangers. While Alexander's under lying ...

... A strongly dramatic and compelling play and Full Marks for sharp direction MAN ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP FOR ABC Armchair Theatre, another American piece about the polygonal peg in society's round hole --but distinguished by an original treatment, strongly dramatic moments and economically effective dialogue. Good performance This has already won the author, Robert Alan Arthur, a television award ...

... HAWIIAN EYE THE sea breaking on sandy beaches, lush night clubs, and smart sophisticated hotels all go to make the setting for the ABC Hawaiian Eye series. And it is in these exotic sur roundings that Tom Lopaka and Tracy Steele operating their highly efficient security service are drawn into fast moving, action packed adven tures. All good stimulating stuff Lopaka is played by Tom Conrad in ...

... LEAVE ALL HOPE BEHIND ATV, December 8 THE somewhat dismal plot of Leave All Hope Behind left me with the feeling that nothing much had been said or achieved--the entire play was really the elongated projection of a man's futile obsession and mistake belief in the circum stances Jing to his daughter's death. But at the end it would have been interesting to know if his disintegration was com ...

... PLASTIC MAC IN WINTER Granada, December 6 THIS was a sensitively written story, sensitively interpreted by Helen Eraser and John Evitts as a boy and girl who drift into an illicit relationship through a mixture of loneliness and self- delusion and (presumably) finally settle for a marriage that seems doomed but may just survive it they both try hard enough. Helen Eraser 1 have seen and ...

... BOYD Q.C. Thread of Evidence A-R, December 6 BOYD, Q.C., is a sort of terrible British Perry Mason (except that Boyd doesn't invariably win). Like all series, some plots are better than others. Thread of Evidence was one of the others. Admittedly I learnt a number of facts about the regulations that come into force when there's an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, but they didn't exactly ...

... BADGERS BEND The Animal Hotel A-R, December 10 THIS is a well meaning but rather self-conscious serial for children designed to impart a great deal of information in the form of fictionalised conversation, and within its own limits it does this very well. It is disarmingly unsophis ticated and rather dated in atmosphere despite references to the Beatles. It reminded me irresistibly of ...

... A mixture that did not thrill FINESSE IN DIAMONDS ATV, Monday, April 5 IF you take a box of diamonds worth a considerable amount of money, and you add the owner who naturally wishes to stick to them and a gang of crooks who desire to steal them, one would imagine that the following thrust-and-parry action would be exciting. Insert a touch of the police who were keeping an eye on both ...

... CANDIDA rpHERE have been funnier pro ductions of Candida (BBC- tv December 29). The cast seemed to take themselves and the play too seriously, thereby providing us with very little to laugh at in this so-called comedy, which almost turned Shaw into a bore. Candida herself was more Louisa May Allcott than Shaw and the part really needed a maturer interpretation than Wendy Craig's. Peter ...

... Perfect little cameos THE SIN SHIFTER IT'S rather like picking numbers out of a hat--deciding which facet of The Sin Shifter (ABC, September 16th) appealed to me the most. was h ine script. ngnt- heartedly baiting the idealogies of the Mother Church while sympathetically tugging at the heart-strings over the plight of a Wanton Woman Was it the cast, each turning in perfect little cameos of ...

... A RIGHT CRUSADER FOR those who were able to follow the intricacies of buying and selling fish, as pre sented here, this might have provided an entertaining Sun day night viewing on BBC tv. That those who are able to do so were in the majority is doubtful. The main fault in this pro duction was that it was too tightly written, thereby de livered so quickly that the viewer found it difficult to ...