THE LISTENER GUIDE DOCUMENTARY David Berry welcomes a C4 season of programmes on mental health but still thinks television's coverage of the issue leaves a lot to be desired. Not all in the mind’s eye One of the distinguishing features of tal health on British television and to Channel 4 has been its use of the develop different images and connec­ ‘season’: the broadcasting of several tions. Mind's Eye is only partly suc­ programmes with a common theme cessful at this. over a few short weeks. The flexibil­ On the plus side, most of the prog­ ity of the channel’s commissioning rammes that were available for pre­ editor system means that the editors view at the time of writing have man­ can operate like canny book pub­ aged to escape from that cliche of lishers, spotting gaps in other sta­ most recent programmes on mental tions’ outputs, deciding that a topic health, the choice between mental deserves a closer, more intensive hospital and ‘community care’. look and then commissioning (and Out of Our Minds (Friday 10.30- perhaps buying in from abroad) 11.30pm), for example, is a sensitive reported. tices seeking power over the human programmes from different produc­ exploration of life in a modern men­ All these programmes work well, psyche. tion companies, one or two of whom tal hospital which avoids a ritual con­ up to a point. To work together as a The one programme in Mind’s Eye might be set up specifically for the demnation of asylum life or scare ‘season’, they need to be com­ which does try and engage with all purpose. stories about what happens to pa­ plemented by other films which pro­ this, The History of Psychiatry Last summer, Carol Haslam, then tients who leave hospital. vide an overview, a sense of how the (Wednesday 9-10pm) is marred by Commissioning Editor for The first programme in a series on mental health system in Britain is exploring the problems through Documentaries and Education, de­ psychotherapies, A Change of Mind structured, how it all fits together. alternative comedy, a bright lun­ cided that mental health merited (14 November for six weeks) has the And this is where Mind’s Eye falls chtime idea which should have been such an approach. The result is courage to spend over 20 minutes on down, like so many other television scotched after a good night’s sleep. Mind’s Eye, a season of 16 program­ one shot of a group therapy session treatments of mental health before. Perhaps I am being a little unfair mes, 14 of which are new, that starts in progress. Courage because— as in There is too much description and to Mind’s Eye here, for there are next Wednesday and runs through till most psychotherapy sessions— much not enough analysis, too many life some very good programmes in the Christmas. C4 has also produced an of what is going on seems mundane stories and not enough theory and season indeed. But part of the prom­ excellent (and free) 36-page booklet and, in conventional televisual terms, history. The season takes as its start­ ise of a ‘season’ is that it breaks with which provides background to the boring. Its final programme, at pre­ ing point, like so many programmes television traditions. And Mind’s Eye programmes and lists over 80 orga­ sent still being filmed, intends to ex­ before, the experience of mental does not, in the end, do this. With so nisations working in mental health in plore psychotherapy in the National health, mental illness and treatment many programmes on mental health Britain today. Health Service, a subject which has rather than the power of psychiatry shown already, there is a real need All in all, then, another case of C4 not been properly covered on the and how that power evolved. to do something very different. A connecting with the parts other chan­ screen. The series gives the viewer The three programmes on schi­ good point to begin might be a film nels have yet to reach? Not quite. an accurate idea of what therapy is zophrenia (10, 17 and 24 October) on how television has tackled the Unlike C4’s season of films about actually like, something that has been are a case in point. subject over the last three decades. Poland last year, for example, or its rarely shown on television. They make eloquent pleas for a recent series on gay and lesbian The Madness Museum (Thursday better understanding of the illness, issues, mental health has hardly been 9.30-10.45pm), a drama about a day but these pleas have been made be­ DRAMA ignored by British television. On BBC at a mental hospital in 1860, general­ fore on television. What has not been Paul Kerr on a political thriller set in alone, there have been over 50 ly avoids the ‘lessons of history’ looked at is how schizophrenia be­ South Africa in the wake of documentaries and half-a-dozen approach that most TV histories of came a subject for psychiatric disci­ Sharpeville. series about the topic over the last 30 medical (and physical) science take, pline, how psychiatry ‘constructed’ years and that is not counting the the glorious march of science this form of classical madness. numerous short reports on current approach, the ‘wasn’t-it-awful-then/ What has not been examined on affairs and magazine programmes how-less-naive-we-are-now' pose. It is British television— and is not in which seem to have a particular fas­ a stunning and original film. Mind’s Eye—is the extension of the Process cination with stories on madness, Two programmes I was not able to discourse and practice of psychiatry scandal and cure. see, Mistaken for Mad? (31 October), from classical madness in the 19th workers In the first few months of 1985, a look at race and mental health, and century to neuroses and general un­ Panorama, Horizon and 40 Minutes We’re Not Mad .,. We're Angry (17 happiness in present times. How did If the first half of the Eighties witnes­ all did programmes on that perennial November), an impassioned chal­ this happen? How did a part of sub­ sed what Salman Rushdie has de­ issue in mental health, the closing of lenge to modern psychiatric treat­ jective experience become colonised scribed as a Raj revival’ on our the mental hospitals. ITV, Yorkshire ment by former patients, both prom­ by psychiatry, thought of as ‘mental screens—with films and TV serials and, more lately, Central have made ise much. The kinds of views covered health’, subject to its rules? like Heat and Dust, A Passage to significant documentaries about cur­ in these two documentaries have These are difficult questions, not India, Gandhi, The Far Pavilions and rent psychiatric practice. Programmes usually been tagged on to news re­ simply for British television but for Jewel in the Crown— the second half about mental illness are almost as ports or more conventional surveys, British thought. They mean rethink­ of the decade has seen a shift of common as the illness itself. and it is good to see them having ing psychiatry not as a benign or focus from Asia to Africa. Already on The challenge facing C4 was to more space. There is much that has malign institution—which most men­ the way are Richard Attenborough’s come up with something new, to been happening in these areas in the tal health programmes have opted Asking for Trouble (about Steve question past representations of men­ last few years that television has not for—but as a set of competing prac­ Biko), Anthony Thomas’s Rhodes and 26 THE LISTENER 25 SEPTEMBER 1986 I'HE GUIDE TVS’s biopic about Nelson Mandela; legacy of the British, alongside the million tourists and the Australian Harry Belafonte has apparently tennis and polo that provide such Tourist Commission estimates each already acquired the rights to Winnie perfect cover for clandestine visitor will spend more than 1,000 Mandela’s life story. For its part, the meetings—at least for the whites. ‘Ev­ Australian dollars. When added to BBC has recently brought us the ex­ erybody trusts tennis players,’ as one sponsorship and television revenue, cellent Asinamati and Drums Along of Margie’s women contacts puts it. it makes hosting the racing very big Balmoral Drive: hard on their heels Even if they are suspected, though, business. comes Death Is Part of the Process people like Pila and Ralph can some­ The America’s Cup is a match race (Sunday BBC1 9 5-10.20pm), a two- times leave the country, while for between two 12-metre class yachts. part political thriller set in the wake Thabo and his comrades Death is Between 31 January and 15 February of the Sharpeville Massacre as anti­ simply part of the process’. 1987 an Australian yacht will race a apartheid activists begin to recognise challenger for the Cup. The first to that peaceful protest may not be win four races will hold the bottom­ enough. SPORT less silver trophy. Round-robin and The presence of Art Malik as knockout races from October until Richard Clark on the media and Indian-law-student-turned-freedom- January 1987 will decide who de­ dollar hype surrounding the running fighter Indres is a reminder of the fends and challenges for the Cup. of yachting's America's Cup in Raj cycle (he played Hari Kumar in Four Australian syndicates are com­ Australia this winter. Jewel and Dr Aziz in Passage).