Enjoyable ending to 1958

By JOAN NEWTON
AS my article for the last issue had to be written extra early now find that there arc so many good programmes to write about that I will not be able to indulge in those grumbles that I had promised myself. 1 will have to leave them over to next week and begin 1959 with plenty of praise for the enjoyable ending to 1958 on both TV and sound-radio.
The range of our pleasures has been wide—from Dom Sebastian Moore, 0.S.B., speaking on the Third Programme on Christmas Eve with a beautiful meditation called "Ante Luciferum" down to an enchanting presentation of "Cinderella" on Children's Television on Boxing Day.
Both B.B.C. and I.T.V. stressed the Christian side of Christmas, though, before we start on the best. I must comment on the jarring note sounded on "Blue Peter", a B.R.C. television programme for younger children. This was on the Tuesday b:fore Christmas, when a comedian asked the children if they knew the meaning of Christmas and then proceeded to sing a song spelling out each letter of the word in turn with absolutely no mention of Christ nor of what Christmas really is.
NO BERLIOZ
TWO other disappointments for this particular family were musical ones. There was no performance of "The Childhood of Christ" by Berlioz, nor did we once hear the Carol Symphony by Victor Hely-Hutchinson. These two pieces have been part of our radio Christmas for so long that it was sad to be without them.
It was amusing to note the differences in the Christmas covers of the "Radio Times" and the "TV Times". The former was far more religious, and the latter's Dickensian scene represented, in a way, the general attitude to life we have come to expect from Independent Television. It would not be at all fair, though, not to say that I.T.V. did some very fine religious programmes over Christmas.
FLEMISH ART
nN the evening of Christmas Eve Associated Red:ffusion gave us a very beautiful film made up from 15th century Flemish paintings showing the events of Our Lord's Birth. It was unfortunate that whoever put the pictures, words, and music (very fine) together did not put the events in their proper order; for example. St. Joseph discovered Our Lady was to have a Child before the Annunciation.
All the same, it was a good thing to have this programme on just before the children sat down to watch "The Adventures of Twizzle", and it must have made some little pagans realise that there is more to Christmas than just food and toys.
A.T.V.'s presentation of Midnight Mass from Brampton Oratory was superb. It could not have been otherwise in such a gorgeous setting and with such a choir and organist (Ralph Downes). Though quite understand the need for a commentator, I would still wish he were not necessary, but, at any rate, Fr. Hollings was as unobtrusive as possible while at the same time letting the non-Catholic know what was happening all the time.
QUA TERMASS
' MONG all the other Christmas programmes 1 must put the return of B.B.C.'s Quatermass in "Quatermass and the Pit" first on my list. We had no television set when this hero first appeared on the air, but we had heard so much about him that we were all agog to meet this wonder, This new story is very exciting and exactly the kind of tale I like with its mixture of magic, archaeology and science. As it is a serial 1 am filled with the same unbearable suspense I had in the days of
sound radio's "Journey into Space".
I wonder if we could ever he allowed to see the earlier adventures of Quatermass and also producer Rudolph Cartier's other terrific masterpiece "1984" which we, and surely countless others, have never seen.
I must not forget that soundradio gave us the whole of "Alice In Wonderland", adapted and produced by Douglas Cleverdon, on the Home Sersice two days before Christmas. Then B.B.C. Children's Television had not only revived Rex Tucker's lovely production of "Aladdin" several days before, but gave us C. E. Webber's fine adaptation of "Cinderella" the day after Christmas. Both these plays were presented without those dreary funny men who ruin pantomimes for most children.