... Winner calls on Equity to recognise changes in SA By SUZAN LEAVY TOP British film director, Michael Winner, this week came out in support of Equity's dropping its ban on television and radio sales to some democratic stations in South Africa and said that union members deserved payments generated from H selling programmes. H Winner, who is best known for directing the Death Wish H films, ...

... Very Big Very Soon CENTRAL HARRY James is a theatrical agent who can put on a better performance than any of the second raters found on his books. He has the uniform camel-hair coat with suede collar, penned hair, and the confidence to sell sand to Arabs and snow to Eskimos. But that doesn't help on a Friday night when the entertainments booker wants an act to delight the punters. And vour ...

... Singles YORKSHIRE ROGER Rees' decision to leave the cast of Singles and settle in Los Angeles, where he has joined the hit show Cheers, has allowed Simon Cadell to take his place. And with a gem of a part. In the new Singles series Cadell plays a three times married actor with an ego biggei than his billing and convinced the world revolves around him. He expects to be recognised by besotted ...

... The Marshall Chronicles CHANNEL 4 IMAGINE Woody Allen at a high school student and you have a good picture of Marshall Brightman, the nervous, intelligent, bright central character of this new American teenage comedy series. Forget the sucked-down hair and rebel leather of the Fonz, this lad wears glasses and a ne, is polite, and is the nicest kind of wimp. The sort of skinny fellow who gets ...

... Good news for Protheroe The BBC in the Midlands has appointed ROGER PROTHEROE (left) to the post of News Editor for BBC Television, Nottingham. He will now be responsible for the daily regional news programme, East Midlands Today, broadcast each weekday evening on BBC1. Prothcroc was previously an assistant editor in the Pebble Mill news room, having moved to regional television from BBC Radio ...

... 'No' vote will cost actors more warns Equity By SUZAN LEAVY EQUITY'S vice president, John Barron and assistant secretary Christine Payne, this week hit out at union members opposed to the proposals for the new television commercials agreement and said that a 'no' vote in the ballot could result in actors losing millions of pounds. Payne told The Stage and Television Today that it was ...

... TWC's strength is fourfold TROUBLED leisure group Trans World Communications will channel its energies into its four operating Independent Local Radio stations rather than diversifying into other areas of business, its new chairman said this week. The company has had a turbulent summer which saw the departure of its chairman and founder, socialist mil lionaire Owen Oyston, in July, after two ...

... Clip shop opens A NEW company supplying film and video footage to makers of films, commercials and television programmes has opened in London. Clip Shop has been set up by Jenny Morgan and Helen Bennitt in response to the need for economical film re search in the expanding visual com munications market. Morgan and Bennitt have a back ground in archive research which spans Weekend World, The ...

... Crystal Maze CHANNEL 4 THIS IS the programme that the off button was made for. It's possible that watching Crystal Maze is marginally more pleasant than banging your head against a very hard wall, possible but unlikely. Thanks to innovative television like this somewhere an oriental version of Clive James is getting laughs and his own series at the expense of British gameshow contestants. ...

... Independents fear GTC delay on programming INDEPENDENT production companies aiming to win programme funding from the new Gaelic Television Committee fear that they may not survive the delay in commissioning material for the screen. The government's 1990 Broadcasting Act com mitted £9.5 million to Gaelic television, to be administered by the GTC, which was set up by the Independent ...

... Scots get Hand Pict for pop videos By SUZAN LEAVY HAND Pict Productions, one of Scotland's fore-most independent production companies, is to branch out into making pop promotional videos to stem the flow of Scottish talent south of the border. The company has recently I produced a number of I music-related programmes I including That for BBC Scotland and The Tilting Ground for Channel 4, work- ...

... Star treking across the UK DAN PARKER picks the bones of the new Star Trek as he discovers the series' latest generation gap BBC 2 Star Trek: The Next Generation HE'S DEAD JIM! In fact, they're all dead Jim! Gone are Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Sulu, Chekhov and the rest. The only survivor from those heady days on the bridge is Doctor 'Bones' McCoy who appears briefly as a shambling 137 year old. Even ...