Free Time Commonwealth on Film

The Commonwealth On Film FKA D105E/01 HDS144741

It is with much pleasure that I greet you,

the representatives from the Parliaments

of all the lands within our Commonwealth family of nations

which enjoy a responsible government.

It has different ties of race, faith, language and finance,

and yet the Commonwealth is there.

It cannot be stated exactly, but it lives and works.

Well, it should mean the relations

between everybody of sharing and giving and taking.

Each Commonwealth, methink, is a celebration of continuity

in community and each is also a challenge

to find the ways to advance that common purpose.

We hope that everyone, artists and onlookers alike,

will thoroughly enjoy the stimulating diversity of art forms

from 22 Commonwealth countries.

It's a family celebration,

the first of its kind ever held by this great family of nations.

Under the patronage of the Queen, as head of the Commonwealth,

this Festival of the Arts

will be seen in London, Cardiff, Glasgow and Liverpool.

Music and dancing speak an international language.

We begin our selection of some of the highlights

with this group of Maoris from New Zealand

performing in Trafalgar Square.

CHOIR SINGS

STEEL DRUMS PLAY

A steel band from Trinidad and Tobago

gives a beat for the lithe, athletic limbo dancers.

We saw one of the highlights

of these limber limbo dancers at the Albert Hall -

flaming limbo under a bar soaked in paraffin.

The Ministry of Works objected to us seeing the naked truth

in Trafalgar Square, but there was no censorship on the stage.

In fact, the Sierra Leone dancers

acquired a lot of useful advance publicity

thanks to the Ministry's sensitivity.

So far, there has been more controversy

about whether your girl dancers should appear

dressed or half-dressed than anything.

What is your viewpoint on that?

Well, I think it's unfortunate

because we offer so much more than just bare-breasted dancers.

We have a very unique culture. My objection is one of principle.

Here we are invited to participate in a strictly cultural festival

as a member country of the Commonwealth

and the Mother Country, as it were, that plays host to us

demands that it should present it, at least at Trafalgar Square,

according to their own tradition.

I think it's ludicrous when you turn it the other way round.

If English dancers were to come to Sierra Leone

and participate in a festival of this nature, which is strictly cultural,

and we told them that our dancers danced in semi-nudity,

therefore the English dancers should dance in semi-nudity,

I'm sure they would be just as appalled as I am.

HUBERT OGUNDE SINGS

Meet Chief Hubert Ogunde,

showman extraordinary

and father, or Baba, as we say,

of the Nigerian popular travelling theatre.

I write the story of what is happening in the society.

That is how I believe it.

It may be social, it may be religious,

it may be folkloric and may be political, if you like.

But, to me,

the theatre is to reflect the image of the society in which we live.

In this society of ours, it is not surprising that nowadays Ogunde

is writing plays which brings traditional ideas

face-to-face with modern life.

His two senior wives are jealous of the new young wife,

a sweet natured girl,

who the King has recently married.

Forced to do a servant's work, she is told to fetch water

so the more senior wife can take her bath.

It's the familiar folktales of his people

that Ogunde takes into his theatre.

They grow out of Ogunde's own village background.

Here, masked performers, or Masqueraders as they are called,

would entertain.

They dance and sing stories about the trial for good over evil,

of life over death.

Here in the village, everybody joins in.

No Nigerian is prepared to just sit and watch a show!

Our audience may be a bit different

from the white audiences I have seen,

in that our audience really talk back to you.

They will speak to you.

They will even say some words for you to say back to them.

And so you can know the way they are going,

unlike in Europe or in Britain,

where people just sit down quietly like that and watch.

Here, the audiences are part of the show.

Throughout eastern Canada,

and here at Ironsides, near Ottawa, the sugar bush becomes a lively spot.

The students of St Alexander's College get a holiday

to go into the woods and collect sap.

In case you don't know it, this is the sap of the maple,

which we boil in long vats in the sugar house

and then draw off to be canned.

This is maple syrup.

On weekends, Ottawans, especially the kids,

take a trip to Ironsides just a sample the maple sugar taffy.

The taffy is hardened on pans of snow and there is plenty for everyone.

Our folk arts in Pakistan are so rich in content,

so deeply rooted in our soil,

that we are not frightened of new industry drying them up.

In Pakistan, they are part of life.

Their themes are universal.

One of them, in East Pakistan, deals with the harvest.

THEY SING

Across to Central Africa and its broadcasting service.

This is the Central African broadcasting station...

A handful of men operate this station,

yet its true value is incalculable.

In our country, where the written word

has never governed the understanding of my people,

the spoken word is now spreading knowledge and enlightenment.

Nothing has brought the ways of this century

more convincingly to distant villages than broadcasting.

MUSIC PLAYS

A complete service, in every sense, is provided by Lusaka Radio.

Our service is technically run by 12 engineers,

for two million of my fellow countrymen.

Only a fraction of that number has been able to afford sets,

but cheap saucepan radios

and group listening habits are widening the audiences every year.

It is our service which reminds us not merely of European achievements,

but of our own civilisation too.

From noon to nine, the Central African Air

links our villages on one wavelength.

THUMB PIANO PLAYS

What was once the pleasure of a privileged few,

is now freely offered to millions.

For radio links together the homes of India,

the North to the South, the East to the West,

helping a nation to know itself.

RADIO PLAYS

The freedom is yours to listen to whatever you please.

Hong Kong is one of the richest cities in the world,

but it still has to cope with the problem

of fitting three million people into its usable area of 62 square miles.

It's a problem that's hard to get away from,

but I did manage to take an hour or so off

to look at one of the famous floating restaurants.

What happens is that when you arrive,

your car is descended on by a horde of healthy, strapping Chinese girls

who offer to row you across in their sampans.

Well, I've already been selected by mine.

There she is, waiting there to make sure I don't get away.

Well, she's just about to row us across to our floating restaurant.

OK, let's go.

Well, there are the floating restaurants, just behind me.

The thing that gave me the idea of coming out here

was something I read in a magazine and it said,

"Have you ever eaten a fish that was alive ten minutes earlier

"on a floating house-like junk, that is made into a fairyland

"of lights and rests on a lake of polished black lacquer?"

That's the sea here.

"Have you ever eaten crab," it says,

"cooked in a sauce invented in the Ming Dynasty?

"Have you seen a million lights in the water

"and a million lights above, while you ate shrimps as soft as butter

"and sipped Chinese wine like old scented sherry?"

Well, personally, I can't wait!

I just didn't know there were so many different kinds of fish around.

There were over 1,000 different varieties,

all swimming around in tanks for you to choose from.

I suppose if you were very particular,

you could even select the particular one you wanted.

When you think of the choice offered by 1,000 different

kinds of fish by about 100 different ways of cooking them,

it was a bit surprising to find that nearly all of the customers

in the restaurant were, in fact, actually playing mah jong

and not eating fish at all, not even a bit of boiled cod.

But I hadn't been rowed all the way out to the floating restaurant

by that strong, silent woman just to play mah jong.

Well, I've had eight courses tonight and each one of them was fish.

I've got the chopsticks to prove it!

The only thing I didn't get was fish ice cream. Good night.

There are still great blanks on the world television map.

India has only a tiny experimental service.

The Union of South Africa has declared itself against television.

But, elsewhere in native Africa, it is starting in a few places -

in Rhodesia and here in Nigeria.

Everybody is watching Ibadan,

capital of the Western region of Nigeria,

which won the race for the prestige of being first

and started programmes at the end of 1959.

What will television do to Nigeria?

And what is Nigeria doing with television?

THEY CHANT

HE SPEAKS IN NATIVE TONGUE

OK, now, can we just rehearse the chant once more, please?

THEY CHANT

Here in Africa, it's just the beginning.

The service is mainly in English,

although many of the people in Nigeria,

particularly the women and children, don't understand English.

Camera two, release now. Pull right back.

Go to the studio, establish shot number one.

All right, come in a bit more.

So far, not many sets have been sold,

but those that have been sold

are watched by 40 or 50 people at a time.

The Governor General, who arrived in London on a five-week visit,

relaxed yesterday in his London hotel

as no official engagements were scheduled.

60 miles away at the village of Igigbo

is Africa's first community viewing centre.

For a few pennies, the villagers can come and see the evening's programmes.

-Go on, get in there.

-Dad!

One move out of either of you and I will blast her to bits.

Drop that gun.

And those who can't afford to pay can get a glimpse

of it all through the fence.

-Struck it rich, huh?

-The joke's on you, you snivelling skunk!

The mine tunnel fell down and hid the vein. There ain't any gold!

I don't envy you.

Put a shot in what's left!

GUNSHOTS FROM WESTERN ON TV

Now throw down your guns!

APPLAUSE

In the Punjab, harvest time gives birth to spontaneous dancing,

following no rule or technique - the bhangra.

Beat the drum vigorously, oh, drummer,

this world will last only for today and none will stay forever.

THEY SING

Hey, mate! Can you tell me something?

Is it Ancient Egyptians or Ancient Romans?

We're Egyptians, mate!

Egyptians, that's what I thought, yeah, yeah.

To look at Australian pleasure,

a good place to start is here,

at Sydney's annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

It is the extreme public expression of our national hedonism

for gays and straights alike.

It attracts well over half a million people

and a few years ago it actually outdrew the Pope's visit to Sydney.

It would have been unimaginable in the Australia of my youth.

Listen, just do me a favour and vogue a bit, will you?

Fantastic, thank you!

During the warm-up to the parade

I met my date for the evening, Vanessa Wagner,

who hosts its television coverage.

See, I've got no basis of comparison

because I've never actually been

to a Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras before.

But I have the impression that it is somewhat less ideological

in its spirit than the ones that I've been to the United States.

Do you think that is true?

I think so.

People are fighting all the time to get their messages across,

so I see it as a celebration.

It's a celebration of pleasure, fundamentally, isn't it?

It is, and it's also a chance

to actually give the viewers in Australia

-something to actually put on their colour television sets.

-Yes.

Let's face it, we've had colour television for a long time

and we don't really utilise it.

You certainly do that, mate!

It is the finest cross-cultural codpiece I've seen in my whole life,

not that I have seen many, but that is really a beauty.

Since 1959, the west end of Kingston, Jamaica,

has throbbed with a musical beat.

A hypnotic sound of surging excitement and power.

People hearing it became caught up in a frenzy

and couldn't help moving to this pulsating, almost religious beat.

This is ska!

SKA MUSIC PLAYS

Yes, this is ska - original and indigenous.

The music of guitar, saxophone, trumpet, bass and drums.

These instruments are playing a monotonic grassroot rhythm.

There are four basic steps to the ska.

The first is to keep the beat with the upper half of the body,

bowing forward with a straight back and a slight bend in both knees.

Basic step number two is practically the same as step number one,

but with the addition of a sidestep.

Step number three is, once again, very similar. Only the arms change.

First right, then left swing up and down in front of the body,

finishing with a body beat when the right arm is in the air,

and then when the left arm is in the air.

Finally, our fourth basic step.

This is perhaps the most energetic of all the basics ska steps.

It is being done by two members of the band and is called rowing.

On a flyblown rubbish dump at on the edge of the city,

the Lucknow Kite Flying Association organises kite tournaments

in which the object is to cut down your opponent's kite

using a string that's been basted with powdered glass

and not only is the undisciplined tangle encouraged, it is obligatory.

Until the strings of the two kites are in a tangle,

the contest can't begin.

You just take it in the air and it will go on.

-It will just go on its own?

-Yes.

-Not for me, it won't!

-Really?

-Will it?

-Yes, it will!

Well, it never does on Wimbledon Common!

-Pull it from that side and leave the string gradually.

-Right.

You see, I am a curse on kites!

You get it in the air and leave the string.

To the anarchic uncertainties of kite flying

- will the damn thing go up? -

is added the absolutely undisciplined activity

of various ragged parties who control the betting.

Under the leadership of an ancient zealot, who, on this occasion,

had gambled his own false teeth and lost.

This is Jamaica - island in the sun.

In June of every year, as if on a cue for beauty,

the whole island gets ready for the season's crop

of lovely girls to appear.

This is a time when one sees smiles that one has never seen before,

new faces.

The girls who have been chosen to compete for the title

set out to meet and be met by as many different people as possible.

Suddenly, the girls are everywhere.

They arrive at the races, and, that day,

horses are not the only favourites being discussed as winners.

After Kingston, the scene shifts

to the Casa Montego Hotel in Montego Bay,

which is the thriving centre of the tourist industry in the island.

A perfect setting for the most essential ritual

of any beauty contest, the poolside parade.

By this time, each girl has sorted herself out from the crowd.

She is no longer just a pretty and new face.

She has become a new person, too,

capable of capturing an audience all her own.

Steadily building up a following day by day.

At last, the night of the finals and the Grand Ball arrives.

Dressed in beautiful gowns,

created specially for them by the leading couturiers in the island,

feeling a little nervous, perhaps, but managing to hide it

with the experience of the past few weeks behind them.

Visiting beauty queens from neighbouring lands sympathise,

for they can remember all too well the turbulent feeling

hidden behind the easy elegance.

It is beautiful Margarette Luas,

fittingly, one of the first girls

anyone arriving in Jamaica is likely to meet,

for she is a ground hostess at Kingston's Palisadoes Airport.

She is crowned by last year's Miss Jamaica, Judy Willoughby,

and as she smilingly hands over the crown of office,

it's as though Judy is saying, enjoy every minute of this,

nothing quite like it will ever happen again.

Marlborough House in fashion-conscious London

is the scene of a display of fashion from the Commonwealth

and Princess Margaret is the guest of honour.

The idea is that models from one country show fashions from another,

like this girl from Singapore in a white mink coat from London.

Vivienne from India in a Persian-style ensemble.

From Nigeria, a Nigerian blouse and skirt.

Nigeria's University College Hospital at Ibadan

is also among the beneficiaries.

So, too, are many of the research projects

of the East African University.

From Singapore, Mona, dressed Singapore style.

This model is called Lady Precious Stream.

Worth its weight in gold, 20 pounds of it!

Girl and dress come from Pakistan.

The dress is 100 years old, the girl rather younger.

An English rose from an English garden,

Stephanie in a London-style multi-mini skirt and full cape.

Washed by the waters of the Arabian Sea,

on the west coast of India is the region of South Canara.

One of our enthusiastically attended sports is buffalo racing.

The end of the race - back to work.

If you'd like to learn more

and trace the progress of the English language across the Commonwealth

through an interactive timeline, go to bbc.co.uk/commonwealthonfilm

and follow the link to the open University.