A Half-hour Book Show Is Bound To Make Its Mark

THE SUNDAY AGE

Saturday April 1, 1995

Liz Porter

YOU may be able to judge a country by its prisons, its cuisine or its public toilets. But a culture also reveals itself, says Andrea Stretton, in the kind of television book show it produces.

The host of SBS's new weekly half-hour book program `Bookmark' has a prized collection of 20 videotapes of book shows from around the world.

The now defunct French show `Apostrophe', she says, was passionate, articulate and chaotic a weekly 90-minutes, shot in a studio ``with lots of people talking, often all at once and a (live) audience". The Germans, on the other hand, were comfortable with lengthy solid one- on-one interviews and little in the way of graphics or pictures to lighten proceedings. And one recent program in the star-crazed US concentrated on authors' personalities, rather than their books.

``This was a bit rough on the many wonderful authors who are not so amenable to being celebrities," says Stretton, who is keen to explain that `Bookmark' does not discriminate in favor of the sort of authors whom TV talk show producers might describe as ``good talent".

The challenge for her on `Bookmark', she says, is to put shy writers so much at their ease that they reveal the wit and intellect that is apparent in their books.

``You're talking about something central to their life. And once they understand that you have actually read the book, and read it carefully, they can be just transformed and they are really very happy to talk." The experience of getting a naturally retiring person to open up can be very moving, she says. ``They glow."

Stretton can see why some people might see a television show about books as a contradiction in terms. ``It is a challenge," she says.

``The books don't even have pictures." But after six years as co- presenter of SBS's `Bookshow' with the late and legendary Dinny O'Hearn, she knows that her audience can cope. ``People see books (on TV) in terms of ideas and authors. The interviews are conversations.

And I love hearing and seeing people talk."

The most obvious difference between the old `Bookshow' and the new `Bookmark' will be the lack of on-location interviews.

``Dinny and I filmed in so many places boats, buses, trains, parks," she sighs. Budgetary constraints mean that the new show will be shot in SBS's Sydney studio. Stretton intends to make every effort to ensure that this doesn't mean a Sydney-dominated guest list for the show, but admits that she may have to rely on help from publishers to get interstate writers on.

There will also be some new shorter segments writing tips, news, and brief interviews with first-time writers, while Stretton also hopes for a variety of faces, with guest interviewers such as Robert Dessaix joining the program for an interview with American writer Edmund White.

One advantage of the show's studio setting, Stretton points out, will be the ease with which panel discussions and debates can be shot.

Melbourne will be the focus of the first show's main interview, with Helen Garner talking about `The First Stone', her controversial book on the Ormond College sexual harassment case.

Arts Council head Hilary McPhee and publisher Sophie Cunningham, writer Gerard Windsor and Newcastle University's Imre Saluzinsky will then come on to discuss the state of Australian publishing after 20 years of Australia Council grants.

There will also be international content on `Bookmark', but it will have to come from outside camerapeople, with a future highlight being an interview with Latin American writer Isabel Allende, shot in her present home near New York, and showing the writer discussing her new book `Paula', which is about the death of her daughter.

`Bookmark' begins on Friday night on SBS, around 11 pm (after the Friday night movie) and will be repeated on Sundays at 5.30pm.