... by Elizabeth Allen GRANADA'S Crown Court made it first to the television screen at its new peak viewing time 8.15 to 9.30 p.m with a story by Peter King called Who Killed Cock Robin? (ITV. Saturday July 19). It began well with shots of the dignified arm of the law directed to the scarlet-robed Judge, in this case William Mervyn; and counsel for the prosecution and defence. Jonathan Elsom and ...

... Modest but it made a point by JAMES SCOTT A MAN IN THE ZOO (BBC-2. Wednesday. March 12, 9 pm), a story by novelist David Garnett, which was first published in the nineteen- twenties. now turns up out of the blue as it were, in a dramatisation by the late Giles Cooper, produced by Rosemary Hill and directed by Donald Mcwhinme. I am always amused and delighted when tiny nuggets of true metal ...

... A quagmire of goodness and light by Elizabeth Allen STONE walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage--but at least the inference is not one of a cross between a first-year sociology debate and neurotic do-eooders. Since it first came to the screen. London Weekend's Within These Walls has moved full circle, and it can surely be no accident that in a series predominantly concerned with ...

... Unfunny hour at the Hall by Geoffrey Wren EXECUTIVE: A great idea for a new series built around a Village Hall the writers can draw stories from the rich panoply of English life tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comedy, his to Accountant: (interrupting) Cheap? Executive: Right Bernie a few simple interiors. Well maybe it wasn't quite like that, indeed the basic idea was a ...

... Conrad does not get a look-in by Patrick Campbell THE Home Secretary assassinated on his doorstep. Assassin, a young girl student, member of a Mao-ist group. Must get away. Seeks the help of a one-time fellow student, then a revolutionary socialist-- though only in name --now heading for a Drofessorship. He betrays her. Sends her to her death at Euston station as she chooses suicide rather ...

... When assured professionalism scores all along the line Radio drama reviewed by Simon Trussler IN the interval of the prom on Radio 3, a talk on The Nature of Belief. Afterwards, a play by veteran radio dramatist Don Haworth about a family of dock plants. On a Day in Summer in a Garden (Tuesday. August 19, 10.10). From solid Reithian thinkpiece to bland venties codpiece with the Mass in B ...

... All we aim at is getting it perfect People and their programmes-- --Frank Bough A SOCCER blue at Oxford and the prick of a pin in Cologne probably changed the whole career of Frank Bough, presenter of the BBC's Grandstand and co-presenter with Michael Barratt of Nationwide. Twenty years ago, he relates, I was doing my national service in Germany when British Forces Network found themselves ...

... A hiccough from the sixties by Ann Sheldon Williams CALLING a series Against the Crowd gives quite some leeway. Assuming one accepts thenecessity of the portmanteau (which some of us don't), it is not such a bad starting point for the theme of nonconformity perhaps even stretching to some new writers? to some nonconformed to the set of rules of how to write a television play? Well, ...

... Camera can't convey fear by James Scott TALES of the supernatural don't seem to me to do terribly well on television and the ghost story which, read quietly by the fire or listened to on radio on a dark winter's night, might bring that looked-for shiver of apprehension somehow fails to frighten when dramatised for the small screen. This was certainly so with The Ferryman (Granada. Monday. ...

... by James Scott AMONG the things which give me pleasure, not the least is the way in which television itself explodes the myths woven around it by pedants who misunderstand, or have reason to fear, the medium. Ben Hall, a thirteen-part series tracing the life story of an Australian bushranger, which has provided a much needed lift to Sunday night viewing on BBC-I following the unlamented ...

... Slow start to new BBC comedy by Jill Weekes IT WAS interesting to note that while three members of the cast of The Good Life (Episode One, BBC-1, Friday, April 4, 8.30) are projecting their recorded images on to the small screen, they are to be found in flesh in Alan Ayckbourn theatre plays: Felicity Kendal and Penelope Keith are in The Norman Conquests, while Paul Eddington appears in ...

... No one could get much out of this by John Stirling I HAVE thought that Roy Castle's problem was that he was too versatile for his own good-- but unfortunately Alan Russell has chosen a very non visual format in Roy Castle Beats Time (BBC-1 April 4, 4.50). I understand that music is inrlwvt n vprv imnnrtant nart of Mr Castle's success in show business but I feel that Mr Russell reduced one ...