LOOKING and LISTENING

What Show Shall We Miss ?
By
JOAN NEWTON
TVAND RADIO. 1 expect every family, like ours, with a choice between B.B.C. or Independent television, has its moments of heart-burning when two favourite programmes clash. This seems to be happening to us a lot lately.
Right from its start we have all loved A.T.V.'s hospital saga "Emergency—Ward 10." It is one of the few programmes I really mind missing. It is to be seen at 7.30 on Tuesday and Friday evenings. Alas, now the B.B.C. have Professor Jimmy Edwards in " Whack-0" on Tuesdays at that time and David Nixon's "It's Magic " at 7.30 on Fridays.
Last season's series of "Whack-0" was not very funny and we were all prepared to sacrifice a visit to Prof. James's establishment on Tuesdays. But we found that Frank Muir and Denis Norden (who wrote the script of " Take it From Here " on radio) had taken over the chronicle and a visit to the Head's Study under their direction soon showed us that " Whack-0" was now extremely funny. Not only is Jimmy Edwards well up to form but his assistant master, Pettigrew, is most touchingly played by Arthur Howard. No, we just have to forego the hospital for the school, and to keep ourselves up-to-date with hospital life on Fridays and do without our magic.
THE CLASH THEN there is the inevitable a clash between the rival TV " Children's Hours" with the added exasperation of knowing that the radio Hour is probably better than the two of them put together but that the lure of the TV set is too much for its and we do not often turn to it.
We had to last Saturday, however, because it marked the return of "Clara Chuff." She is a very special railway engine and we discovered her for ourselves a long time ago when her adventures were only to be heard on the West region.
Since then she has been heard by the London children as well and I am not surprised that her adventures are now to be heard all over again. We had, somehow, never heard this first story where Mr. Forty-Fifty, the Goods Engine, tells Peter and Pinkie the first of Miss C. Chuff's adventures.
The mixture of railway engines and magic is delightful and the author, Harry Harrison, has hit on a wonderful way of pleasing lots of children at the same time.
RARE GIFT
TO return to television, the B.B.C. Children's Hour is often the best but the programme usually to be seen on Fridays on the Independent channel takes a lot of beating. It is a programme called "Jolly Good Time " and it really does give you just that.
Jimmy Hanley is in charge and right from the first moment they saw him all our smaller ones have loved him. He has that rare gift, like Cliff Michelmore in " Tonight " on B.B.C., of looking thoroughly at home and making his audience feel the same.
On the same programme you can see Dorothy Smith with her puppet " Snoozy " a sea-lion, who IS nearly as much liked as "Sooty," Harry Corbett's delightful animal, and that is great praise indeed.
When they have finished their act, usually covered in custard pies or pudding, you can laugh your heads off with " The Adventures of the Little Rascals." Before the war we knew this set of adventures as " Our Gang " and what a gang they are. This is one of the nicest series to come from America and is all about the tricks of a set of the smallest children you could expect ts see on the films
Another terrific laughter-maker on Independent television is the British "The Army Game " usually to be seen on a late Wednesday evening. This is about a group of soldiers, their sergeant-major and their miajor, who dotes on pigs. When you 'know that Alfie Bass, Charles Hawtrey, Bernard Bresslaw and Norman Rossington make up the troupe, you know you should be in for a lot of funand you get it, too.