Anglia TV's "Full Frontal in Flip-Flops"
Richard Burnham
the programme (loads of innuendo, stripper boom-boom music) so I feared
the worst, but the programme was a marvellous surprise. It owed most to
the gentle good humour and open-mindedness of the director, who was more
than willing to take part (along with most, but not all, of the crew). I
also felt that the consideration he showed to the bride with the
mastectomy, in asking if the crew were intruding and offering to
withdraw if they were, was genuine.
This was undoubtedly the best of a number of British TV programmes on
nudism in the last few years. I doubt if British naturists will get
better publicity in the mainstream media for a long time.
However, doubts clearly crept in to the director's tone when he observed
naturists saying one thing and doing another. This was in the scenes
with Charlie Simonds and Helen Ludbrook.
Simonds got far more attention than I consider he deserves. He is an
artless photographer who portrays his models as wooden and lifeless as
an empty coffin. He seems to get away with being a "naturist"
photographer because his products and brochures offer a useful
supplement to the incomes of others in the commercial side of naturism -
they presumably sell to more people than are interested in guidebooks
and holidays. (I have never seen the videos so I don't comment on them.)
I think the programme illustrated a general point about most such
programmes. As long as a wide range of ordinary people are shown, the
innocent pleasure of CO activity usually comes across. Once you start
getting "names" on (Simonds, Ludbrook, even Nisbet on one hand, Ryland
and Walker on the other hand in another programme), the programme tone
becomes less sympathetic or even hostile. I think it's because "names"
are not necessarily speaking for enjoyment of nude recreation, but
primarily speaking for their own interests - in some of these cases,
making money. It's a bit like getting Bill Gates to speak for computer
users.
One incidental point - did I hear correctly that Helen Ludbrook of H&E
had been forbidden by her publisher to have interviews with the press? I
wonder why? ;)
Richard Burnham------------------------------------------
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Richard Burnham
<w...@wiseword.demon.co.zz> writes
[snip]
I used the word "artless" wrongly - Simonds is certainly not "guileless
or ingenuous" as the Concise OED has it. What I meant to say was that
his work lacks art.
Cheef
> Charlie Simonds
>(I have never seen the videos so I don't comment on them.)
I have seen exactly one, and consider it even more artless than his photos.
-----
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