Culture

Every 10 years, it seems, we are blessed or afflicted, depending on your point of view, with a major exhibition of the internationally acclaimed sculptor, poet and filmmaker Rebecca Horn (born 1944). The first show I remember was at the Serpentine in 1984. Then in 1994 she had the Tate and the Serpentine. Now it’s the turn of the Hayward. At the time of that first Serpentine show, I remember being intrigued and not a little fascinated by this strange artist who made occasionally functioning machines, wore custom-built bodystockings with strange appendages, and liked to be filmed disporting in long grass. At the Tate exhibition, her grand piano strung up from the ceiling jangled memorably from time to time. I was less impressed, and the technical inventiveness seemed a little lax.

Quite the most upsetting thing I saw on TV all week was Bob Geldof on the Jonathan Ross show (Friday), talking about all the dead Africans who are found washed up on the shores of Lampedusa, between Libya and Sicily. So many, he said, that the mayor of Lampedusa complained that he had ‘literally’ no room anywhere left to bury them. Now, obviously, Africans dying en masse is a bad thing. But I’m afraid what upset me far, far more was the fact that Ross allowed Geldof to get away with this lachrymose homily (which got a huge cheer from the audience, unfortunately) on a show normally characterised by its flipness, brazenness and irreverence. ‘Yeah, yeah, St Bob, save that guff for Parky,’ Ross might have said had he been on form.

It was something of a shock to hear the first episode this week of Radio Four’s adaptation of BBC television’s popular 1950s series Dixon of Dock Green (Wednesday). Were policemen ever like the bluff, wise, shrewd and avuncular constable George Dixon? As a child watching the series, I thought they were, and we expected them all to bend their knees and say, ‘Evenin’ all.’ Audiences also believed it, as the series, written by Ted, later Lord, Willis, ran for 21 years. By the time Jack Warner, who played Dixon, retired, he was 80 and hardly looking like a police constable, let alone being able to bend the knees. Even if Dixons really did exist, they certainly don’t today.

Hard to know where to start with On the Shore of the Wide World. The title, maybe: a sweet, rambling, lyrical phrase made up of vacuous and seductive borrowings. Like the show. We open with Susan, played by Susannah Harker, waddling on stage, apparently up the duff. Her aggrandising tum operates as a sort of clock during the action. At two o’bump she is flirting with her builder, Peter. By five o’bump one of Peter’s sons has left home. By eight o’bump Susan seems on the brink of beginning an affair with him. But at nine o’bump the prodigal returns, Peter makes it up with his wife and the family gathers for a big cosy hug and a nice bag of chips. That’s about it.

‘Times have changed,’ I was told by one disgruntled Academician. Once the members were guaranteed to have their work hung ‘on the line’ (i.e., in pride of place at eye-level), and non-members would get the remaining positions if they were lucky. This year John Hoyland’s large paintings have been ‘skied’, and one of Craigie Aitchison’s screenprints (he refuses to send in paintings because the summer show is such a ragbag) has been hung ‘on the floor’. Jeffery Camp has declined to show anything at all because he’s fed up with his pictures being hung too high to be properly seen.

There are weeks when I even feel privileged to be a television critic. You’re vaguely aware that out there somewhere people are watching Celebrity Love Island (though not very many), those dreary Saturday-night dancing contests, and Your 100 Favourite Embarrassing TV Animal Moments on Channel 4. Then along comes a clutch of shows and you realise that there are still a few people in the industry who care about making good television. You want to find out where they live, and go round to give them a great big hug and a box of Black Magic. For example, I expected David Dim-bleby’s A Picture of Britain (BBC1, Sunday) to be annoyingly whimsical — beautiful scenery spoiled by having David Dimbleby stand in front of it. I was wrong.