Even if you don't know the difference between a Tory and Tori Amos, Britain's "Question Time" is the most engrossing spectacle on TV
I believe that cable television was created so that there could be a C-Span. And I believe C-Span was created so there could be "Question Time with the Prime Minister."
Good old C-Span. The most hypnotically boring thing ever. It's America's Funniest Home Videos without the funny stuff. It's public access without the entertainment. With live feeds from bush-league Senatorial debates, unedited footage from sonorous state dinners, and lengthy interviews with drony spin doctors, it's tedium taken to magnificent extremes. But as if to keep the whole works from flatlining completely, there's "Question Time." One part game show, one part sitcom, one part Masterpiece Theatre, this weekly half-hour program is a weird shot of adrenaline in the soma-soaked upper end of the cable dial.
"Question Time" is a twice-a-week spectacle when members of the British Parliament's House of Commons have 15 minutes to fire queries at Prime Minister John Major. It is, essentially, a forum for the kids to whine to dad.
I've never been able to quite figure out the rules that govern "Question Time," but the object of the game seems to be to get the PM to reply in the affirmative. Members frequently ask delicate questions which begin "Would the prime minister not agree...?" and which, depending upon the questioner's party affiliation, tend to run quickly towards polite speculation that Mr. Major and the conservatives have their heads up their posteriors. For his part, Major, after referring to his constituents as "my right honourable friends" and his opposition as "the right honourable gentlemen," proceeds to rip them new orifices -- very gracefully, of course.
Great drama requires a great cast, and "Question Time" has the best pair of rivals since "Dynasty's" Crystal and Alexis. John Major, smooth, silver-haired, with a giant overbite, is the perfect foil for his nemesis, big-eared, slightly cross-eyed Labour leader Tony Blair. Between them is the Dr. Seuss-ily named Betty Boothroyd, Madame Speaker, a spitfire of parliamentary discipline with a bouffant that could frighten the B-52s. When a conservative MP gets out of line with a question, Betty quickly shows him the business end of the bossy stick and makes him sit down, and when she bellows, "Order! Order! I WILL have order!" I want someone to develop her a spinoff.
"Question Time" has got meatier banter than a week's worth of "Seinfeld" reruns. The parties duke it out in the way that the staid Brits do best, by lobbing smartass jabs back and forth at each other. When Tony Blair cocks his little puppy head and sympathetically asks the Prime Minister about his party's "humiliating defeat" that week, Major leans into the podium with the ease of a barfly at happy hour and replies that the young man "would be wiser to not be quite so smug" before spinning his own version of events. Half a world away, I feel the same sparks I do when I watch Cary Grant and Kathryn Hepburn in "The Philadelphia Story." (Though the cast has a delicious chemistry, I do wish I'd gotten hooked on the show a few years earlier, when, according to reports from long-time enthusiasts, Iron Maggie Thatcher turned it into a star vehicle with her snarly me-against-the-world charisma.)
The current supporting characters are tremendous fun too. Like a governing body culled from the cast of Mystery Science Theater, the ministers just can't help adding their own sound effects. The forces of agreement rumble their "Hear hears" while the opposition mutters grunts of disapproval, creating a murmuring undercurrent like a subwoofer in the trunk of a Roll-Royce. It's like the scene in "Animal House" when all the Deltas coughed "bullshit" at their hearing, only with elected officals. That the ministers have to carefully couch both questions and replies in the most gracious of terms but are allowed to grumble and hoot like a pack of Hulkamaniacs at Summer Slam is rather mystifying. It's also quite amusing.
I follow the show with a devotion I have not felt since the first season of "Twin Peaks." Will it be Tony or the Tories who get the upper hand this week? Will Betty have a hissy fit? The past few weeks have been particularly exciting on the series, what with the mad cows and all, and various MPs slinging their suggestions for dealing with the disturbed bovines. An MP from a seaside village entreats the PM to tell the British public to "Eat Grimsby fish!", while another says the beef should be used to feed the poor, who'd probably take a shot at a little brain disease for a nice steak. Or words to that effect.
Could the U.S. have its own "Question Time"? It seems doubtful. Bob Dole and Bill Clinton trading one-liners while Newt Gingrich plays ump is the most chilling premise for a television program since "American Gothic." And Al Gore as a guest star does not exactly spell out e-x-c-i-t-e-m-e-n-t. Like cricket, monarchy, and warm ale on a hot day, there are some things best left to the British.
"Prime Minister's Questions" airs Sunday evenings at 9 pm PST.