(taken from) OFFICIAL VICTOR LEWIS-SMITH WEBPAGES

I can't quite put my finger on Thora Hird. When Alan Bennett provides the script, she can give a genuinely moving performance yet, when playing herself, her demeanour is that of a mawkish WRVS lady hovering over a bedside, the sort who offers a cup of hot sweet tea and says, "You've had an accident, dear." From the way she hosted the first in the new series of Praise Be!, she clearly assumed that her typical viewer was either a dim five-year-old, or a confused inmate of a geriatric ward. And, having watched the programme, I think she's probably right.

For verily, a miracle hath occurred, and the moribund format of Stars on Sunday has been raised from the dead. True, Praise Be! does not have the late Jess Yates, but Thora, with her fruity Sister George hat and cape, is a worthy successor. She smiled her sweet-tea smile, read, "I mean this sincerely, I'm enjoying myself so much" in dispassionate tones straight from the autocue, and told us that "Tonight's hymns will all be sung to praise the Lord for the wonderful world He has created." And the requests flooded in from the handicapped, the arthritic, the lonely, the deaf, the blind and the very, very old: all recipients of the blessings of the Lord God's wonderful world.

On with the hymns, selections from Ancient and Modern sung by congregations consisting entirely of cute gappy-toothed children and gumming OAPs, with a few social misfits for leavening. Various denominations were represented but one thing was certain: there were no charismatics. On Praise Be! the hopeless sang of their hope in an orgy of dour melody, inept scansion and archaic vocabulary, making a joyless noise unto the Lord. Hymns were accompanied by soft-focus Athena-poster shots of the wonderful things for which the Lord can take credit - raindrops on roses, bright-coloured posies and nesting mallards, rather than, say, muscular dystrophy or dandruff - while Thora linked the twee shots with philosophical observations so crass they made the average Christmas card read like Wittgenstein's Tractatus. "I'm sure there is something we can all learn from the faithfulness of our animal friends," she said, as Roger her vicar blessed the local pets on the village green. Faithfulness? My own cats made their loyalties perfectly clear to me long ago; if I ever mislay the tin opener, they're off.

Then another miracle occurred; it seemed impossible, but the programme actually got worse. Thora visited Paul Heiney's farm where, although he ploughs a few fields of root crops, the really profitable vegetables are the witless TV presenters continually turning up to film it. "I'll only farm organically," he proclaimed, meaning that he grows those shrivelled, emaciated mud-covered things you see in supermarkets, costing four times as much as the healthy, succulent, chemically grown produce on the next shelf. As for his animals, the lambs had a "splendid life" on Jollity Farm (at least until he sold them to the abattoir for immediate slaughter). By now, the progamme had degenerated into that ritualistic myth of rural England that begins with the omnibus edition of The Archers and unfailingly delights a certain type of city dweller. If God's countryside is so idyllic then why have figures for unemployment, alcoholism, violent crime and suicide rocketed amongst country folk, with most of them desperately trying to move to the city?

And why do such dreadful religious programmes survive in prime-time slots? Are they a part of the "Keep Sunday Special" ethos (a euphemism for "Keep Sunday Miserable")? Genuine worshippers are at church, not glued to TV sets, but of course these programmes are not intended for Christians, just the rest of us. They can't force us to believe, but they can ruin early-evening television so, out of sheer Christian compassion, that's exactly what they do. ITV has erased the early-evening God slot and it's high time the BBC did too.

Religious programmes are often treated as sacred cows, beyond all criticism, but frankly there is only one sacred cow on Praise Be!. However, she must go unnamed, in case the programme's libel lawyer is tempted to perform a miracle of his own: the courtroom miracle of turning a TV review into a huge amount of bread.

Vale Farm
Middleton

Dear Vic,

TV critics have the right to their own dislikes, even if these vastly outnumber their likes as they grow more tired and mad. From two recent pages, you clearly dislike my husband very much, and I am sorry about this. But suppose you lay off the actual calumny?

I mean the farm. It is a perfectly serious, experimental and perhaps idealistic enterprise. It is not supported, as you suggest, by being filmed for TV (this has happened twice, for peanuts, and a great many offers are refused. Paul has a weakness for Thora Hird, so he let her in).

Your suggestion about the livestock is verging on the libellous: none of the farm stock are "sold to the abattoir" with the callousness you imply. They live the most natural lives farm animals can, and are slaughtered under the most humane conditions available after careful handling and very short trips - unlike what you buy from the supermarket. Paul campaigns strongly for the preservation of small, low-stress slaughterhouses, which is something which ought to matter very much to anyone who is not a vegetarian. Are you? All our meat is sold directly from the farm, to locals; which makes it a reasonably economic proposition. There is nothing townie or sentimental about the whole operation. It is real.

I suppose that what I am saying is that Paul is not a hypocrite or a poser. The farm is a labour of love, involving long hours of hard physical work, and considerable financial worry. If he writes lightly about it in The Times, and allows the odd film crew in, it is peripheral to what he is actually doing: demonstrating certain unfashionable but important principles of early 20th century farming. If he was exploring early musical instruments, you would respect it. Try and think of it that way. If he could afford to do it without any publicity, there is nothing he would like more. I know that all TV performers end up having the worst possible motives imputed to everything they do in their future life; but we all have to earn a crust somehow, do we not?

If you are still based in Ipswich, you would be very welcome for a drink. By the way, the reason I am the author of this letter is that Paul never sees the Standard anyway. Nor would he probably bother to justify himself to you. Blame wifely loyalty.

Otherwise, good luck. I follow your career with interest.

Love,

Libby Purves

5. v. 93

Dear Libby,

God bless you for your letter.

I was touched to hear that your husband - sole instigator and executor of the twelve-part radio series A Year in Harness - is so media shy about his farm, and that, when it comes to TV, "a great many offers are refused". Perhaps you could let me know the names of some of the TV programmes that have been banned from filming in Heiney acres? I'd like to contact the producers and console them.

Referring to my remarks about the killing of livestock as "verging on the libellous" is infantile and silly, and you must have known that perfectly well when you wrote it. You object to the nasty brutal word "abattoir", and prefer nice fluffy words like "low-stress slaughterhouse", but the only way to make a slaughterhouse happy is to remove its first letter. I'm not a vegetarian, and I see nothing wrong in defenceless animals being killed in order to satisfy my jaded palate; slit their little throats, I must have more meat. You're presumably not vegetarians either, but you do think it's wrong, so you take refuge behind euphemisms. The distinction may make you feel better, but I doubt if the animals would appreciate it; they're going to end up just as dead in either case.

I'm all in favour of traditional farming, just as I thoroughly approve of charity work and helping old ladies across the street. What sets my alarm bells ringing is when someone is continually appearing in the papers, or on TV and radio, talking about their good work instead of just quietly getting on with it. Chez Heiney-Purves, you are certainly ecologically sound in one respect; every last scrap of your lives seems to be recycled endlessly in the media.

I've just been reading about the Borgias, so perhaps I'll take a rain-check on the drink, thanks all the same.

Yours in Christ,

Victor