This Is Your Life article

RADIO and TV

by PAUL BOYLE

AS A READER SEES IT

Sunday Pictorial: This Is Your Life article

HERE'S a cartoon from a reader - Mr M Clayton of Burnley.

Thanks for a good laugh, Mr Clayton. Allow me to pay your TV licence in return!

I like this drawing of Eamonn Andrews and the group of tough characters, because it sparks off something I've wanted to say for a long time about This Is Your Life.

Here's a top BBC show that can't afford to pull punches.

It has to trade in drama and emotion to succeed.

BUT THE BBC IS KILLING IT STONE-DEAD WITH ITS OWN BRAND OF RESPECTABILITY.

You should see the American version!

Some of the tales are as meaty as a Chicago stockyard - and as shocking as yellow boots at a funeral.

The Americans don't shy away from the realities of life.

FOR British consumption, however, the B.B.C. gives us something straight out of a lavender bag.

Crime, poverty, romance have no part of it. Yet these things make the daily headlines.

Like the nun who told the "Pictorial" how she gave up love to enter a convent, then changed her mind after years in search of true faith.

Or the man from the condemned cell who was reprieved on the brink of eternity.

Or the call-girls, racketeers and Gretna Green runaway lovers.

How about THEIR lives?

I am not suggesting that everything in the programme should be sensational.

A little soul-baring once in a way is a good thing.

Now Eamonn, you're an Irishman. Can't you talk a little Celtic reality into the production? Can't you give us a few shocks?