... JAMES GORDON adds up the price of cutting corners THE MANAGING director said to the chief accountant, We must cut costs. The chief accountant said to the programme controller, We must cut costs. The programme controller said to his producers, We must cut costs. The ducers said to their directors, YOU must cut costs. The young and keen director looked very hard at his budget and said ...

... A Kind Of Living CENTRAL JUST LOOKING at the bare bones of A Kind Of Living it would seem to be a doubtful starter and at best maybe one more sit-com joining the programme conveyor belt passing briefly across the screen. But the really funny thing about sit-coms is the uncertainty both of how they will play and how they will be received. Certain apparent winners dwindle away and others thought ...

... The Zero Option CENTRAL THE TROUBLE with calling a television production a thriller is that it has to have more thrills than a five minute burst followed by well over an hour meandering through a fairly nebulous plot. To this end Central's Saturday night thriller Zero Option failed badly by letting everything rip in the quite excellent opening scenes then turning thepower right down. Those of ...

... 'WE CAN'T SAVE REGIONAL JOBS' SAYS RUSSELL By ANGUS TOWLER THE INDEPENDENT Television Commission, which took over the television duties of the Independent Broadcasting Authority last month, will not take into account the regional presence in applications for the 1'1'V franchises when it awards tnem later tins year. ITC chairman George Russell told The Stage and Television Today that in ...

... YTV in shares coup YORKSHIRE Television announced this week that it has bought 1 9 per cent of the ordinary share capital of Tyne Tees Television Holdings. The shares were previously held by Vaux Group PLC, although Paul Nicholson, chairman of Vaux, will remain on the Tyne Tees board. The cost of the shares of £5.1 million is being financed out of Yorkshire's exist ing resources and Yorkshire ...

... Red Dwarf BBC2 MOST alternative situation comedies manage to exude plenty of right-on alternative attitudes without paying much attention to the comedy. Reports would indicate that in ear lier scries Red Dwarf was more concerned with being as far away from Terry and June and other traditional sitcoms as it is possible to be, whilst still claiming expenses from the Light Entertainment ...

... 102 Boulevard Hausmann BBC2 THIS season's batch of Screen Two plays tends to feature big stars, while penned by established writers, which doesn't necessarily make them less predictable or innovative in content. For something completely different however, this odd little peek at a period in the life and work of Marcel Proust, as observed by Alan Bennett, was strangely poignant, without ...

... In Conversation With David Frost SKY WHAT do America's President Bush and Britain's most successful contemporary composer of stage musicals have in common? Both have been In Conversation With David Frost recently as part of the interviewer's latest international television series. Produced by Frost's own David Paradine Television, in association with Primerica, the new hour-long pro grammes ...

... Still putting on the kitsch BBC1 Dr Who 25th Anniversary FIRST, A confession. The last time I watched Dr. Who, it was in black and white and I was in short trousers. So what's changed in 25 years? Dr. Who himself, obviously, having gone through seven incarnations. Other than that, not a lot. Despite being one of the Beeb's more successful exports (selling to 60 diffe rent countries) it still ...

... The Golden Gong BBC-1 J. ARTHUR RANK, or Uncle Arthur to his contract stars, had flour power. That provided him with money and for some inexplicable reason moved the narrow-minded religious man--of whom it was once said there's Methodism in his madness--to found the British film industry. As good an excuse as any for a look back to the times of the £100-a-week starlet, the Rank charm school, ...

... Vanity Fair BBC-1 PREVIEW ALTHOUGH William Makepeace Thackeray's boisterous novel has been dramatised many times, the latest production must surely rank as the most lavish yet; expensively costumed, with location work to rival any feature film, and also perfectly cast and entertainingly adapted. In episode one of 16 half-hour episodes, attractively directed by Diarmuid Lawrence, the ...

... virtuoso CHANNEL 4 THE WAY to prevent soccer hooliganism, it emerged from the first of the Virtuoso series, is to persuade aggressive youngsters to take up a musical instrument. At least it worked in the case of Nathan Milstein, one of the greatest violinists of the century. The cure was administered many years ago he is now a respectable if remarkably lively 83 when he was living in his ...