TVIe hectic quest for panel Les raises the point whether it is the game or the by-product in the way of news, personalities and information which viewers want. "The Name's the Same," "Down You Go" and the new "It's a Mystery" are games. But the real interest of "What's My Line?" "Guess My Story." "Vegetable, Animal, Mineral" and "Where on Earth?" is extraneous to the game.
I omit reference to the inept and vulgar, in the literal sense, "game" about husbands and wives.
It seems to me that the real future of this type of entertainment lies in finding settings for information and personalities.
"Where on Earth?" is an excellent adaptation of the "Vegetable, Animal, Mineral" idea, but we must have a new chairman, and the presence at the first session of John Betjeman means that the feature will always be disappointing when he is not in the team.
All these games tend to be spoilt by adventitious entertainment, slow and prosy chairmen and prompting either by the chairman or the dreadful studio audience whose reactions are so obviously conducted by the producer.
I shall not be surprised if the TV Oscar in the appropriate field goes to "Ask Pickles" this year. It is ingenious, fast, ever-changing and kept sparkling by Wilfred Pickles's outstanding personality. What an entertainer he is, and how one appreciates his instinct for doing good through his powers ! '
For the first time I have seen the TV version of a show I saw in its original form : "The White Horse Inn on Ice." To my amazement I found that in many ways TV did better than nature in the raw. We lost the colour. which was magnificent, but we saw the skaters and actors close enough to be e to appreciate the skating technique and the genius of Max Wall and Norberti. These latter were lost in the vastnesses of the Empress
Hall. M. B.