TV programs worth watching
Sun October 31 — Sat November 6

I had always been under the impression that when Shakespeare 
retired from the London theatre he returned to Stratford and 
abandoned writing to live the life of a country gentleman at 
last. But as the final episode of In Search Of Shakespeare 
(ABC 2.00pm Sunday) shows, far from "never writing another 
word", he collaborated with younger playwrights and was in fact 
quite active.

In fact, two years after he "retired" to Stratford, he bought a 
house in London — next door to his theatre company's posh indoor 
theatre in Blackfriars.

I will miss this series. I will miss its erudition and 
scholarship and its enjoyable journeys through the extraordinary 
historical and cultural records and artifacts of England (what 
amazing things survive in a wealthy country that has never been 
overrun by an invader for a millenium).

And I will miss Michael Wood's infectious enthusiasm and his 
masterly and determined linking of Shakespeare's work to the 
historical processes of the time.

The actor Martin Shaw does not fit my mental image of the poet-
copper Commander Adam Dalgliesh who is PD James' resourceful 
sleuth in her popular series of detective novels.

Shaw does not seem dry enough for Adam Dalgliesh, but I must 
admit, after seeing the previous short series in which he played 
the part, I am looking forward to his return in the new two-part 
series The Murder Room (ABC 8.30pm Sundays).

A co-production between the BBC and US cable station WGBH, the 
series was adapted for the screen by Robert Jones from the PD 
James novel about a series of grisly murders replicating exhibits 
in a section of a museum devoted to the social history of Britain 
between the Wars.

What are the important things in life to 14-year-old girls? 
According to the new kids series Girls In Love (ABC 5.25pm 
Mondays), adapted from Jacqueline Wilson's best-selling books, 
they are "friends, fun, snogging and BOYS!"

While I have no doubt those things are important, I think it 
sells kids short. Those four things may be all some girls that 
age think about, but not all girls by any means.

Cast your mind back to the anti-war demonstrations prior to the 
invasion of Iraq. School kids were very prominent in those 
events, and not because they thought it was a way to meet boys or 
even that it was fun (although it was).

They were there because they were concerned about the issues, 
about peace and war, about inhumanity and injustice. By eschewing 
any sort of social conscience or awareness on the part of the 
girls in the series, Girls In Love reinforces the idea 
that such concerns and activity are uncool.

The series could have helped to expand kids' horizons, while 
still dealing with the problems of being a teenager. It doesn't, 
and that's a pity.

In the ultimately successful struggle waged by imperialism to 
overthrow socialism in the USSR, no stone was left unturned, no 
tool was left unused. Popular music from the West was a potent 
weapon in this struggle for ideas and culture.

Amongst those whose music was skilfully used to help overthrow 
socialism — or as capitalist spin doctors put it, to "open 
Soviet society" was Paul McCartney.

On May 24, 2003, Paul McCartney's "Back In The World" tour 
visited Russia, where he was generously rewarded for his part in 
helping re-establish capitalism there. His nearly three-hour live 
concert in Moscow — in Red Square no less — was attended by 
such dignatories as President Putin and former President 
Gorbachev (a local has-been but still a Western favourite).

In St. Petersburg McCartney received an honorary doctorate from 
the esteemed Russian Conservatoire, and — the ultimate irony — 
dedicated a building for the future advancement of the arts for 
Russia's youth.

It's all in Paul McCartney In Red Square (ABC 9.30pm 
Monday).

Mr Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A Leuchter, Jr (SBS 
10.00pm Tuesday) is a documentary from the acclaimed American 
filmmaker Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line). This program 
is a portrait of Fred Leuchter, a man who spent his childhood in 
Massachusetts visiting the prisons where his father worked, and 
grew up to design execution equipment (electric chairs, lethal 
injecting machines and gas chambers).

In 1988 Fred Leuchter was approached to testify in the case of 
Ernst Z|ndel, a German national living in Canada who was to be 
tried for publishing a pamphlet denying the Holocaust. Leuchter 
visited the sites of the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration 
camps in Poland and, without permission, took measurements and 
chipped samples from brickwork which he later submitted for 
chemical tests.

Ignoring the evidence of survivors and the mountain of other 
historical evidence including the Nuremburg testimony, he 
concluded in a report and in his subsequent testimony, that no 
gas chambers operated.

He later gave speeches to the Neo-Nazis who enthusiastically 
embraced his denial of the Holocaust. Revisionist historian of 
the Holocaust, David Irving, claims Leuchter's publication The 
Leuchter Report: The End of a Myth is what "converted" him.

Historian Robert Jan Van Pelt says Leuchter is a victim of the 
myth of Sherlock Holmes who believed he could go to the scene of 
the crime and reconstruct reality. He points out that Leuchter 
had no training and was simply a fool committing a sacrilege at a 
historical site of indescribable suffering.

The final episode of Stories From A Children's Hospital 
(ABC 8.00pm Thursday) takes up the issue of Aboriginal 
children's health in remote parts of Western Australia.

The episode concludes that Aboriginal health is not so much a 
medical problem as a socio-economic problem that has to be solved 
by government action. In the meantime, as the program shows, a 
few dedicated doctors struggle to plug the gaping holes in the 
health care provided for Indigenous Australians.

The cruelty and inhumanity of many of those who claim to be 
carrying out the "word of God" never ceases to amaze. Unholy 
Orders (SBS 8.30pm Thursday) is the story of a class action 
brought by several hundred people who had suffered degrading and 
inhumane punishment in Scottish orphanages by nuns.

Orders such as the Sisters of Nazareth in Glasgow thought it 
right and proper to separate siblings, so that sisters would 
never see each other for years on end even though they lived in 
the same institution!

Even after a nun was found guilty on four charges last year, the 
Catholic Church and the nuns continued to deny that the abuse had 
taken place and refused to apologise.

The class action went before the court in August 2004 but 150 
claimants, including all the people in this film, were promptly 
excluded from the class action by a legal manoeuvre: under 
Scottish law, claims of abuse before 1964 are prohibited. 
Survivors are now fighting to have this law changed in the 
Scottish Parliament.