Glued to the Box

Glued to the Box (TV Criticism from the Observer 1979-1982), is the third and final collection of the television criticism Clive James wrote for The Observer. It includes material from articles that run from 2 December 1979 to 28 March 1982. In the Introduction he writes that he had, " never thought of television criticism as a career. It is the sort of thing one goes into with a whole heart but not for ones whole life." The volume finishes with his "standing up and moving aside" for his successor, Julian Barnes. "No doubt he will slag one of my programmes first chance he gets, but by then I will be in the habit of damning all critics as fools." The London Review of Books wrote : " Along with its two predecessors, (Visions Before Midnight and The Crystal Bucket), it will stand as a once-only critical phenomenon: ten years worth of high intelligence and wit." Sheridan Morley called him " far and away the funniest writer in regular Fleet Street employment." The book is dedicated to Pat Kavanagh and Dan Kavanagh and carries an epigraph from Charles Péguy at its start.

Programmes Reviewed

• Ian Curteis's Suez - " an epic documentary drama about Sir Anthony Eden...Somewhere in the early 1950s, it is the end of the line for the British in the Middle East. The writing is on the wall, and it is in Arabic...Eden had no legal justification whatsoever for launching the Suez adventure. On top of that, he had misjudged Britain's real strength entirely..he handed the Soviet Union a moral advantage, which they were able to exploit when crushing the Hungarian rebellion...It was the moment when even Britain's rulers caught up with the truth about their country's reduced capacity to influence events by force."
• Testament of Youth - " four episodes have gone by. I have watched each of them twice and never ceased to marvel at the writing, directing and acting."
• Nancy - " portrayed Lady Astor as a sacred monster...She thought that if Ribbentrop were invited to Cliveden and allowed to win at musical chairs then Hitler would moderate his demands. Plainly, like many instinctively virtuous people, she was an innocent."
• Ski Sunday - " the women go slower than the men but not much. One feels protective when they crash, especially since the protectives they are wearing do not look all that protective. Luckily the British girls, in sharp contrast to their continental counterparts, move at a sedate pace."
• BBC Sports Personality of the Year - " the trophy for International Sportsman of the Year went to Bjorn Borg...Borg is always nice, knowing that he will never be resented for his wealth as long as he stays shy."
• Sportsnight - 'Remarkable how slim the Romanian girls are,' mused Ron Pickering and/or Alan Weeks. 'Quite slim indeed.' Poor , grim little darlings, they looked anorexic. "
• Henry IV, Part I (BBC2) - " proceeding staunchly between the lower levels of excitement and the upper stratum of tedium...Interiors tended towards straw-on-the-floor naturalism..The trouble with low-budget naturalism is that it never looks natural..The night scenes before the Battle of Shrewsbury looked particularly fine."