ONE OF THE BETTER CLASS OF GHOST STORIES

MENACE Series: "Deliver Us From Evil' By : Hugh Whitemore. Produced by Jordan Lawrence, directed by David Sullivan Proudfoot. BBC 1. Bodmin Moor — traditional spot for creepy happenings — a young man of lean and anxious counternance encounters a gateway bound by chains, surrounded by storm - whipped treetops and a ferocious breed of crow, guarded by roaring, hounds bent on lay. ing their teeth on him.

Undeterred, John Beste, our hero, plunges onward and despite a series of crashing omens, including a graveyard stuffed with weeds and more howling presences, meets up • with the local vicar in his decaying mansion with more heavy-handed signposts to doom such as barred doors and black turrets, broken floorboards and cobwebs.

The vicar has advertised for an organist and John Beste has responded. It is soon apparent that the vicar is a madman • with all sorts of debateable philosphies, that the place is full of rats and old bibles and that it's certainly no place for spending even the odd hour, let alone any nights.

However (surprise) a storm blows up, thunder and lightning abound, rain teams down, the dogs yowl and the crows rasp; John Beste is determined to make it back into town, against the vicar's wishes, and sets off nightmare journey through the grounds in which trees attack him, the path disappears and he is shortly soaked to the skin and understandably hysterical.

By this time, viewers of this highly - predictable piece of garbage, are in the sort of coma that this sort of television drama is designed to induce: it has the happy familiarity of material that is not likely to disturb with any nasty unforeseen events, has no relation to the realities of everyday life and is full of infantile distractions and suggestions of what is always fondly called 'the supernatural' to take minds off the price of beef or wage-cuts.

But all is not finished yet: John Beste returns the doubtful company of his lunatic vicar and they engage in polemics about MAN: MAN says the vicar is naturally evil-John, being a schoolmaster and sensitive at that, claims the opposite.

The vicar locks him in a room for the night and possibly for eternity claiming that such innocence and goodness must be protected from the world. John Beste, a resourceful fellow, unlocks the winGow. orave savace hounds and makes it over the wall to freedom on to Bodmin Moor.

The vicar died in 1959, we are told, of coronary thrombosis and are thus induced to speculate that the whole thing was drawn from 'true life.' Hugh Whitemore is a skilful and intelligent writer who manages to extract meaning even from the most meagre circumstances, as in this piece; the dialogue is stylish and restrained.

Lewis Flanders gave a fine portrayal of the young man— and the whole piece was designed primarily as a vehicle, it seemed, for one of the old masters of the theatre, John Gielgud, to give a performance considerable distinction, even against such odds.

Three talents-and those of producer and director and production team-of no mean proportions, given over to the presentation of such profound trivia, might seem confusing.

The television companies are turning out an énormous amount of this sort of material these days-plays concerned with the supernatural, the occult, fantasy of any old gruesome kind in such series as 'MENACE' and NIGHT GALLERY'.

There is nothing confusing in the motives behind it. This stuff is quite simply designed to confuse, to distract from unity'. And it marks a break in the Histadrut's long record of full political and practical support for the state. It can A scene from the MENACE series: the mounting chaos that objective circumstances present to us all: such talents as Whitemore and Gielgud are slotted willy-nilly, naturally enough, into work of this kind.

It is clear that the more imbecilic the quality of the drama, the more care and consideration is given to it, to intelligent, enlightened work."

An intellectual life which, in times of stress, is centred upon fantasy, speculation, introspection and the worst kind of second-rate morality, has always been the prerogagestures of protest, as a useful safety-valve for working-class discontent at present. 'Dellver Us From Evil' shown on BBC tive of the middle classes.

These days, the screens and bookstalls are crammed with variations on these themes. Ghost stories are old favourites-'Deliver us from Evil' was a stylish performance, one of the better class of ghost stories and given a seriousness of approach that might delude us for moments at a time that there is something of import here!

In this way drama becomes nothing better than an excrescence on the face of society, a parasite feeding on the superficial, reflecting the Haifa, there was a little problem of parking space. It was decided, by whoever decides these things, that whereas a 1 last Thursday night. most contemptible facets of capitalist world in crisis.

Drama, in these times, is nothing better than a dim charade without consent or durability.

Even while every fresh shock economic and otherwise, in the objective world brings home to us that appearance means nothing, the . PuTveyors of our 'culture' insist by implication, more and more forcefully, that appearance is the only thing that mattersperformance, style, form is all; content is consigned to an afterthought.

Dagon grain elevator.

This gave the passengers a unique opportunity to appreciate an impressive piece of