Peter Hall wrote about this edition in his diaries, describing watching the film on William Walton and Gracie Fields made by Russell Harty for the episode.
Listed under September 1st 1975, Hall recalled: "It is a first-class piece of work, brilliant, humorous and very informative to fans of either or both. But there was one aspect that worried me. Old people are always dead give-aways - like children. Either they don't care, they can't be bothered, or they've forgotten to dissimulate, so their egos get more vividly exposed. Russell asked me what I thought, and I told him I found the film unnecessarily cruel. He bridled and said it was commercial, and another director who works with Aquarius said that in a commercial world this was what mattered. I got a little terse. I think being commercial has nothing to do with being cruel, and said so. If people are awful, they must indeed be shown to be awful; but it's a question of degree. I stayed arguing until late evening and, I think, upset Russell a fair amount. I believe he will modify the film though."
Listed under September 1st 1975, Hall recalled: "It is a first-class piece of work, brilliant, humorous and very informative to fans of either or both. But there was one aspect that worried me. Old people are always dead give-aways - like children. Either they don't care, they can't be bothered, or they've forgotten to dissimulate, so their egos get more vividly exposed. Russell asked me what I thought, and I told him I found the film unnecessarily cruel. He bridled and said it was commercial, and another director who works with Aquarius said that in a commercial world this was what mattered. I got a little terse. I think being commercial has nothing to do with being cruel, and said so. If people are awful, they must indeed be shown to be awful; but it's a question of degree. I stayed arguing until late evening and, I think, upset Russell a fair amount. I believe he will modify the film though."
The day this edition aired, journalist Michael Ratcliffe gave a critical review of Peter Hall's appointment and performance in The Times, among his points being:
"[Humphrey] Burton gave the original Aquarius homogeneity and balance. In succession it has sprung two heads, carefully marked Harty and Hall, or Camp and Cool: it will surprise no one to find bits of feather already flying in the wind. When Harty made a short film in which Gore Vidal remarked, among other things, that people forced to attend the plays of Harold Pinter might perhaps be awarded a small life-pension by way of compensation, Peter Hall went out of his way to disown Vidal's views as soon as the film was over. As Pinter's chief interpreter in Britain, he doubtless felt he had no choice, but a more neutral presenter would have had no choice to make.
Hardly a man with time on his hands, Hall has presumably taken the job to express as widely as possible his feelings about the survival of humanity in the arts, but misgivings roused by his appointment remain strong now that we have seen him in action. (Tomorrow he introduces the Walton-Gracie film with perfect detachment, but hardly appears at all.) The short item on Scottish Opera illustrated two of his problems perfectly. The divorce between Hall in the studio and the interviews in Glasgow (who WAS talking to Alexander Gibson and Peter Hemmings?) was total and chilling, and when Hall himself flew a kite on the possibly stimulating effect of financial crisis on the inventiveness of the arts, we all wanted to know at one how he might apply the suggestion, to his and our embattled National Theatre."
"[Humphrey] Burton gave the original Aquarius homogeneity and balance. In succession it has sprung two heads, carefully marked Harty and Hall, or Camp and Cool: it will surprise no one to find bits of feather already flying in the wind. When Harty made a short film in which Gore Vidal remarked, among other things, that people forced to attend the plays of Harold Pinter might perhaps be awarded a small life-pension by way of compensation, Peter Hall went out of his way to disown Vidal's views as soon as the film was over. As Pinter's chief interpreter in Britain, he doubtless felt he had no choice, but a more neutral presenter would have had no choice to make.
Hardly a man with time on his hands, Hall has presumably taken the job to express as widely as possible his feelings about the survival of humanity in the arts, but misgivings roused by his appointment remain strong now that we have seen him in action. (Tomorrow he introduces the Walton-Gracie film with perfect detachment, but hardly appears at all.) The short item on Scottish Opera illustrated two of his problems perfectly. The divorce between Hall in the studio and the interviews in Glasgow (who WAS talking to Alexander Gibson and Peter Hemmings?) was total and chilling, and when Hall himself flew a kite on the possibly stimulating effect of financial crisis on the inventiveness of the arts, we all wanted to know at one how he might apply the suggestion, to his and our embattled National Theatre."