This book has received a good deal of advance publicity from the British
press. Typically for an industry so parasitic upon the medium of
television, our national newspapers delight in advertising the efforts of
any BBC insider who is prepared to expose the Corporation's more arcane
practices. Apparently, the author is a producer with BBC Radio 4, although
the publisher has included no biographical information to substantiate
this. Paling himself has refused to discuss the book.
Despite the fuss in the press, Paling only really delivers the BBC a
series of glancing blows. The Corporation provides the context rather than
the object of the novel. The episodes where there is considered reflection
upon the BBC's character and purpose are surprisingly few, but in case the
reader is under any illusions, he is invited to compare the attitudes
expressed in the book with the idealistic ruminations of the Corporation's
founder, Lord Reith, quoted at the beginning of each of the novel's three
parts. 'Peculiar' Edwards, a radio producer of long-standing, fondly looks
back to the time when BBC intellects were allowed to 'ferment among the
inertia of creative inactivity'. 'Unfortunately, creative inactivity can't
be costed,' Edwards laments, 'and in this brave new world of "efficiencies"
and "choice" and "transparency", it don't fit.' This want of congruence
sets the tone for the novel which is occupied by characters who have
neither the motivation or constitution to resist these changes or the more
unsettling agitations that inhabit their private lives. Such is the
atmosphere of ennui that, taken together, these characters would not look
out of place in an Eastenders omnibus. The anti-hero, Maurice Reid, lives a
nomadic, slothful existence tempered by the soothing comfort of alcohol and
the fatuousness of Corporation life, typified by his inability to have the
office light-bulb replaced. Roy May is a radio presenter who is a walking
anachronism and Paling demonstrates the kind of touch of which Kingsley
Amis would have been proud in injecting this character with just the right
amount of arrogance and seediness.
The author is also very persuasive in
his portraits of the main female characters. Polly is Maurice's ex-wife,
struggling to maintain a lesbian relationship with Val whilst caring for
her son; the encounters between Polly and Maurice are brilliantly
constructed. In introducing Elaine, Paling shows great dexterity in
communicating this character's constant emotional turmoil over her
responsibility to her mother, her feelings for May and her dawning
awareness that her future at the BBC is by no means secure. One may regret
the relative lack of attention given to potentially interesting characters
such as Warde and Dawn and perhaps the rather forced ending, but Paling's
skill in assembling a convincing setting and cast far outweigh these
disadvantages. This is certainly a very accomplished novel infused with a
resolute combination of humour and pathos that never fails to please.
Reviewed by Robert Whitehouse
