Where St Kilda ain't grubby

The first thing this forty-something viewer would like to know of the bright young folk who populate The Secret Life Of Us (Ten, 9.30pm), is whether anyone in this fictional St Kilda reads more than magazine articles devoted to improving orgasms.

Alex (Claudia Karvan) is a doctor so presumably she has read any number of books even if they are all medical texts. I'll lay odds, though, that she is a clandestine Anne Tyler fan. The secrecy seems necessary when all her friends are interested in doing is necking stubbies and getting down to some horizontal folk dancing. This can be fun but the mind is like a plant; deny it nutrients and light and surely it will wither.

Evan (Samuel Johnson) is an aspiring writer so he must (mustn't he?) have stuck his nose in a paperback at least. Unless (eek!) he is only interested in writing for television and believes, therefore, books to be superfluous.

Evan should check out an episode of The Sopranos sometime, although he might be puzzled by some of those literary allusions. Tony Soprano might never have read a book but his creator certainly has. Miranda (Abi Tucker) and Richie (Spencer McLaren) are actors so they have to have read books in the course of climbing the mountain. Climbing the mountain, by the way, is not a tai chi move but actor-speak for giving a performance. The mental image of Hillary and Tenzing is there as you wonder whether the writing of The Secret Life Of Us will in future allow these actors, all of them more than competent, to get beyond base camp. For the canker that gnaws at the conception of this admittedly sassy series is that those who live in a groovy place like St Kilda eschew the life of the mind. And, that they are all good looking.

On the latter score, the writers and producers should have taken a swan down Carlisle Street or Grey Street in the gloaming. Or hung around Topolinos in the wee small hours. It ain't glamorous.

As for the furphy that all St Kildaites are brainless hedonists, those same writers and producers should pop into the Prince of a Sunday afternoon and tune in to some of the conversations. These may not be twentysomethings, but they once were (yes!). That is why I feel certain that Simon (David Tredinnick) the barman will not only prove to be someone who is wellread but also a person who can hold an intelligent conversation with the older regulars. The young ones, no doubt, will think he is talking Martian.

The opening sequence of The Sopranos (Nine, 10.45pm) puts the whole thing in a nutshell. As Tony Soprano drives through New Jersey to his home, which appears to have been modelled on Nero's golden palace, and the guy from Alabama 3 sings of getting himself a gun, we see unfold a panorama of a culture that has failed its constituents.

If Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) was a reader, he might better put things in perspective. But all he's got is television. Happy are we, then, that we have got both television and The Sopranos, since the conjunction of the two makes for art. By which you mean there is nothing here that is included by accident. From the fact that these murderers are in the garbage business to the placement of a funeral, the mourners themselves responsible for the death in question, beneath the concrete arabesque of a freeway.

Great television like this resonates with meaning. The lesser kind merely emits a hollow clang.

By SIMON HUGHES
16 July, 2001
The Age