Dennis Potter’s last play, Karaoke, had been hailed as “the television drama event of the decade” – but reviewers are not raving yet. The play, written together with Cold Lazarus while Potter was dying, has been long awaited by the critics. But after Karaoke was broadcast last night finding a verdict amid the flood of scatological description in today’s papers is not easy.
The Guardian’s review, like the play itself, opens with a “foul whiff”, quoting the doctor: “Mr Feeld, I am now going to insert this soft tube into your rectum.” Tony Purnell of the Daily Mirror says the best reason for tuning in next week is a scene where a mother hides an armpit hair in her son’s egg-on-toast.Only Sean Day-Lewis of the Daily Telegraph manages to negotiate a sweet- smelling Karaoke review “What matters … is a universal insight to the way writers think and feel,” he says. He is also alone among reviewers in his high praise for the play: “It does not displace the still richer Singing Detective …

as the writer’s masterpiece, but is unarguably his strongest drama since then.”Mr Day-Lewis is also impressed by Albert Finney as Daniel Feeld, who he says is “towering” over the rest of the cast. Matthew Bond of the Times agrees, finding Finney “magnificent” and “reminiscent of Sir Kingsley Amis”.The Guardian, however, finds Finney’s performance “risibly bombastic”.Mr Purnell was pleased to see Potter still “sticking up two fingers” to those offended by the playwright’s strong language. “Trust Dennis Potter to make sure his last words included plenty with four letters,” he writes. “The awkward cuss who gave Mary Whitehouse more nightmares than anyone else in his time was never one to worry about watchdogs.”Tom Sutcliffe’s opinion,Section Two, page 32. The average household spends pounds 42.81 a week on transport with more than half of this going on cars, says a report out today.

Households spent more than pounds 53bn on transport in 1994, with cars and taxis accounting for 95 per cent of this, says the British Roads Federation paper Road Fact 96. The report, sponsored by Shell Bitumen, also revealed:
Road users pay pounds 25bn a year in vehicle and fuel taxes but less than 25 per cent of this is spent on roads;More than 60 per cent of the population old enough to drive hold a licence;A figure of 92 per cent of inland freight is moved by road;And traffic flows have risen 61 per cent on motorways and 21 per cent on trunk roads in the last 10 years.”Road Fact 96 seeks to answer questions about road transport and give the facts behind BRF’s calls for more money to be spent on providing quality roads,” said Richard Diment, BRF chief executive.. Jams are so bad that motorists spend an average of five days a year stuck in traffic, it was revealed today. But congestion could worsen so dramatically that drivers might get caught in jams for the equivalent of a fortnight a year by 2005, the RAC and car map computer company Trafficmaster said. The two companies revealed:
More than 50 per cent of drivers experience congestion on more than half of their motorway journeys;An estimated 1.2 billion hours are lost through congestion every year;A ten-mile tailback can take as little as 35 minutes to build up, contains an average of 8,000 vehicles and take more than one and a half hours to clear.The RAC and Trafficmaster are joining forces today to help motorists on “Keep Britain Moving Day”. Drivers on the M25 in Hertfordshire can pull into the South Mimms services for the latest RAC and Trafficmaster congestion forecast.. Holidaymakers prefer peace and quiet to parties, and settle for sightseeing rather than sunbathing, says a survey out today.

Asked what they looked for in a foreign holiday, nearly three in four UK tourists opted for peace and quiet.
Even teenagers liked to get away from the madding crowd, with 54 per cent of them saying they wanted a bit of tranquillity on their trip. From travel insurance company Home & Overseas, the survey of nearly 1,000 adults revealed:74 per cent wanted peace and quiet on a foreign holiday and the same number wanted to meet new people;More than two in three wanted adventure, with nearly all teenagers (94 per cent) keen on this, but only 44 per cent of over-60s opting for thrills;66 per cent favoured seeing historic sights and ruins, with the young the least keen on this;And sunbathing was a popular pursuit for 58 per cent, especially with teenagers.. Supporters of one of London’s best-preserved historic houses claimed yesterday that English Heritage had instructed staff not to meet them because of dispute over the buildings’ care. The Council of the Friends of Kenwood House, in Hampstead, north London, held its first meeting without the presence of English Heritage staff yesterday .
George Levy, a member of the council, said the injunction had come from Sir Jocelyn Stevens, the chairman of English Heritage, following the row between English Heritage and the Friends over curatorial provision at Kenwood.It is believed to be the first time that staff representatives – Judith Rutherford, director of history properties in London, and Ian Dejardin, the curator with responsibility for Kenwood, have not attended a council meeting. The pointed move follows the Friends’ passionate objections to English Heritage’s decision to dismantle its Museums Division, based at Kenwood.Instead, the quango has substituted a managerial team in Oxford Street, with a curator only visiting Kenwood on average twice a week.Kenwood, remodelled by Robert Adam in the mid-18th century, was bequeathed to the nation by Lord Iveagh, head of the Guinness dynasty, in 1928.