TV: Power of 'Awful Truth'

By GREG DIXON

Truth No 1: Superman was the superhero who was supposed to fight the never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way.

Truth No 2: Michael Moore, the lardy, scruffy bloke found on TV4's The Awful Truth on Monday nights at 9.30, ain't no Superman but he is a superhero.

Truth No 3: There's more truth, justice and the American way in this loopy, liberal journalist's half-hour of television than ... well, than in anything since the last time Moore was on our screens.

It says much that his new show - which is a cross between Fair Go and Monty Python and a stand-up comedy routine - seems so refreshing, surprising and edgy.

What that means is that television has become such a predictable, sanitised medium that The Awful Truth looks and sounds more dangerous than it probably is.

What it certainly is, is funny. From the title sequence, which declares one of the world's five media moguls to be the antichrist and announces Moore's "People's Democratic Republic of Television," to the two short stories (which last week variously stuck it to Washington hypocrisy and a private health insurer's duplicity), it has you hooting.

But some of the first episode had a little too much of an America's Funniest Home Videos feel about to make it truly dangerous.

The first story, in which Moore took a troop of actors dressed as Puritan witch-hunters to Ken Starr's home and the streets of Washington, was more stunt than serious hunt.

A sort of Whose Line Is It Anyway? let loose on the streets of Washington, the sequence had Moore's witch-hunters (which cost him $560 rather than Starr's $50 million) performing a sort of manic street theatre while Moore himself wandered around asking a few unlucky Congressmen about their (rather than Clinton's) infidelities. Apart from the embarrassed looks on a few politicians' faces - no bad thing, of course - the result was little more than inspired silliness.

But the second story suggested the show has real guts. Moore took The Awful Truth into bat for a young father, Chris, who was about to die because his health insurer, Humana, wouldn't pay out for a life-saving pancreas operation.

Using blackly satirical humour (including a mock funeral complete with bagpipes and mourners) and foot-in-the-door, ass-kicking reporting, Moore delivered a universe of embarrassment to the company involved and a pancreas operation for Chris. For once, a studio audience's cheering seemed appropriate.

But if Moore has a message - "we believe in freedom of the press, we just don't own any of the presses" - he also has a formula just like any other TV producer/presenter.

He knows how much most of us hate politicians, big business and media manipulation. He knows, too, that they're soft targets that don't take much to make them look stupid.

But what Moore really understands is the power of the camera. People might be able to ignore people, but people just can't ignore the unflinching eye of a TV camera. At least he's using that power to fight the good fight.

Truth No 4: The Awful Truth is awfully good, if only because it reminds us that television can be a tool for good, not just a place for not-so-good entertainment.