TV programs worth watching
Sun August 22 — Sat August 28

Compass (ABC 10.15pm Sunday) this week deals with the 
witch craze of 1589-91 that resulted in the deaths of over a 
thousand people, mainly women, and mainly in Scotland.

The program concentrates on the influential role of the 24-year-
old King James VI of Scotland, the future King of England — who 
became the most brutal witch hunter of them all.

In the manner of so many "modern" TV documentaries, writer-
producer Mark Hayhurst presents the facts in dramatised form, 
presumably so the program won't be "dull". In fact, the program 
actually features fictional "interviews" with the leading figures 
of the time, played by actors who were no doubt grateful for the 
work but who do not enhance its historical authenticity.

For all this dressing up, the program misses the main point of 
the witch cult, which in Communist historian A L Morton's words 
"existed through the Middle Ages [not just at the end of the XVI 
Century] as a secret religion of the exploited masses".

Morton notes that "the social history of the cult has been lost 
because it was a religion mainly of the illiterate and because it 
was savagely persecuted and forced to exist underground.

"Men who felt that Church and State were leagued against them 
turned for consolation to the old enemy of the Christian 
mythology, the Devil."

Morton quotes the French historian Michalet who declared that 
"the medieval peasant would have burst but for his hope in the 
Devil".

Significantly, Morton notes that "the cult was strongest where 
the peasantry was poorest and most wretched — very strong in 
France and Germany, for example, and stronger in Scotland than in 
more prosperous England". As always, economic considerations are 
of greater importance than the personal whims of this or that 
prince.

The organisation of the witch cult is interesting: "Fragmentary 
references indicate that it was often connected with political 
unrest and conspiracy. Its organisation, in local groups, or 
covens, and districts with coven and district leaders whose 
identity was unknown to most of the members was curiously like 
that of an illegal party."

So that's why I like Harry Potter!

Dynasty Of Terror, screening on The Big Picture 
(ABC 8:30pm Wednesday), is not about the Bush family (as you 
might have expected) and their record of sowing death and 
destruction willy nilly over large parts of the globe.

No, it's about the Bush family's number one global scapegoat, 
"the sprawling bin Laden family, one of the richest, most 
pervasive and influential dynasties in the Middle East".

The program asks: Does the family support their 17th son Osama's 
radical Islamic views? 

Would they tell a TV journalist if they did?

Needless to say, the program fails to delve into the murky but 
well documented relationship between bin Laden and successive US 
administrations. Might have cast light on the wrong "dynasty of 
terror", presumably.

Eagle & Evans (ABC 9.00pm Thursdays) is a new Australian 
comedy show that is both clever and original — as well as quite 
amusing. I was impressed and pleasantly surprised.

Part sketch show, part sitcom, Eagle & Evans has a format 
that is a little (but only a little) reminiscent of cult classic 
the Larry Sanders Show. It's a comedy show about a comedy 
show.

The principal characters, comedians Craig Eagle and Dailan Evans 
(played by themselves) are the warm-up guys and general 
dogsbodies on The Blaze da Silva Experience — 
"Australia's most popular television variety show".

Their job is to hype up the audience for Blaze, then they 
hang around in the green room trying to put off anyone they think 
might do a better comedy routine than them.

What Craig and Dailan really want is for Blaze to give 
them a proper guest spot on the show. Every week we find them 
pitching their latest idea to him, only to have it rejected.

Created by Craig Eagle and Dailan Evans, this droll mix of 
sketch, stand-up and sit-com is a co-production between ABC TV, 
Burberry Productions and Princess Pictures.

Martyn Edward Hesford's 2001 adaptation of The Life And 
Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (directed by Stephen 
Whittaker) returns this week (ABC 11.05pm Thursdays). With the 
notable exception of Miss Squeer's grotesque attempts to woo 
Nicholas, the two-part series misses much of Dickens' rich and 
pointed humour, tending instead to be overly grim.

Nevertheless, it is extremely well done, largely justifying the 
Radio Times' comment: "Breathes an astonishing life and 
vibrancy into Dickens' third novel ... will enthral, amuse and 
horrify."

Only Dickens' third novel, is the story of a young man, left 
penniless on the death of his father, who is "helped" by a 
mercenary uncle who sends him to work in a "school" that is more 
like a concentration camp for unwanted children.

Dickens' portrayal of the conditions at Dotheboys Hall was a 
major factor in bringing about the reform of English education 
practices. The novel "passed like a whirlwind over the schools of 
the North".

It was, in fact, one of his most successful crusades. He had had 
to leave school himself for a time and work in a warehouse 
capping and labelling pots of shoe-blacking. For the boys who 
worked there the place was a malodorous nightmare, equalling 
anything in his later novels.

It was his evident sympathy with ordinary people, and especially 
his penchant for peopling his novels with affectionate portrayals 
of decent people in all stations of life, as well as his 
unrivalled ability to create grotesque but thoroughly believable 
villains and hangers on, that made his books so deservedly 
popular.

James D'Arcy plays Nicholas with an appropriate mixture of polite 
diffidence and righteous affront at the injustices so rampant 
around him.

As his money-lending uncle Ralph Nickleby, Charles Dance is 
broodingly malevolent — but then does he ever play anyone who 
isn't? Lee Ingleby brings the unfortunate Smike to life with 
astonishing clarity and understanding, while Sophia Miles makes a 
very beautiful and sympathetic Kate Nickleby, amongst a huge cast 
of top British acting talent.