... 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- ...

... The Slap Maxwell Story BBC-2 WHAT A FILLIP to find arriving unsung and unheralded one of the best new series to come off American television. Slap Maxwell, tired and cynical 50-year-old sports columnist for the Ledger, can best be described as journalism's answer to Phil (Sgt Bilko) Silvers. He's a loser, a verbal conman, a bank of sharp one-liners and snappy repartee, a tired cynic, a skirt ...

... Naked Video BBC-2 WHO SAYS the Scots can't provide mod-style fun? The Naked Video team, under producer Colin Gilbert, are back in form for a new series, tilting-in merry mayhem-at many things from condoms to Muriel Gray. The programme moved at a fast pace, sometimes, maybe, a bit too rapidly, but most of the brief sketches and cameos were slickly treated. I liked the learner-driving ...

... A Bit of Fry And Laurie BBC-2 THIS IS a first BBC-2 series for ex-Cambridge Footlighters Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie and must also be the first occasion on which nobody has addressed a word of welcome, farewell, or explanation to the audience from start to finish. Messrs Fry and Laurie are two more graduates from the university launch pad which has sent the Beyond The Fringers, David Frost, ...

... ITV Count Duckula A VEGETARIAN VAMPIRE may sound like a contradiction in terms, but there had to be something unusual about ITV's newest cartoon hereo, particularly when he is backed by massive promotion and marketing plans to ensure that all young children know enough to want to watch him through 16 adventures, the first of which went out this week. The vampire in question is Count Duckula ...

... Moliere vs the cash YOU often hear actors moaning about the sacrifices they make for their art. Well, here's one you can believe is true. Ron Moody, re-united with his original Oliver director Peter Coe in the prestigious The Miser by Moliere cur rently at Guildford, has turned down three firm television offers in order to honour his commitments to the French classic. Much in demand in America ...

... 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 ...

... 55___________! Television Reviews ?^?^?^?^?^--i ^^^^m THAMES The High Life THIS new senes takes the Hello! magazine approach to the lifestyles of the rich and famous: natter their much-pampered egos, provide a montage of drooling shots of the vulgar trappings of their wealth and let the viewers immerse themselves in an orgy of cov- etousness. The High Life was interested only in an ...

... Time to stop this commercial lemming Equity is blundering into a trap which could undermine every actor's earning power, argues ROGER BRIERLEY THIS MONTH Equity is balloting its members, recommending a new agreement with the advertising world. The core of this agreement ties actors repeat fees from commercials to the ber of viewers purported to have seen the commercial. But haven't we been ...

... TV THE TARGET OF BIG BUSINESS LARGE international companies with no broadcasting interests are poised to become major investors in television programmes, The Stage and Television Today can reveal this week. Granada Television set a prece dent this year with its documen tary series The Shape Of The World, broadcast this May by ITV, which was substantially funded by electronics giant IBM. Now at ...

... 'Copyright costs stop coverage' TELEVISION coverage of the arts could double if Britain's copyright laws were changed, according to a new Arts Council document published this week. Forming part of a campaign to establish a strategy for media and the arts in the UK, Arts Broadcasting, written by producer Stephen Phillips, argues that arts television is made unnecessarily expensive by fees ...

... By GILLIAN ROSE THE Edinburgh International Television Festival finished on Monday afternoon with a heated debate about the Rough Justice case. The BBC refused to take part in the seminar because of a pending $17 million law suit in Los Angeles brought by Anne Fitzpatrick, one of the key witnesses, who alleges invasion of privacy by the BBC. Michael Grade, director of program mes and ...