review

The story of Trevor Baylis's wind-up radio was made for television, either by happy accident or because someone had cannily decided to flatter the medium. It was made for television because, you were given to understand, it had been made by television. Without a documentary about the difficulty of getting health information to rural Africa, QED's (BBC1) uplifting tale of ingenuity and persistence might never have been told. "If I'd been watching Come Dancing on the other side..." mused Trevor, shaking his head at the tenuous threads of fate. (Of course in that case he might have invented a device for removing the smiles from ballroom dancers' faces, or for applying sequins without hand-sewing, but it is clear the social benefit would have been diminished.)

As it happened he went off to tinker in his shed and produced a clockwork radio. Throughout the programme people kept saying "This is a radio for Africa" in thrilling tones, but it sounded ideal for my bathroom window as well. Instead of just getting wound up by The Moral Maze you would be able to wind them up first.

Trevor wrote to all the major manufacturers and got the brush-off (do they own shares in battery companies, you asked yourself). But then television stepped in again, just when things were looking bleak. Tomorrow's World included an item about his invention which "just happened" to catch the eye of Chris Staines, a dapper and energetic young businessman, who immediately whisked round to Eel Pie Island to get a finger in. The combination of Trevor's idea and Chris's acumen and contacts gave the radio a real chance of success. Television, then, was both muse, marriage-broker and midwife.

Staines took the idea to South Africa, where a combination of charitable capital and local research eventually resulted in a commercial version of the radio, to be manufactured by a disabled workforce in a brand new factory. Trevor burst into tears when he walked through the door so that much of what he said subsequently was subject to sniffly interference, as if his own mainspring was winding down. You gathered that he was happy and proud - and justifiably so.

Moving Story (ITV) is grievously ill-named - its narrative is as nimble as treacle on a table-top, a motion undetectable by constant attention. The best thing to do is to go away for a month or so and then come back - at which point it would become clear that the plot really has advanced, even if individual episodes offer no sensible proof of the fact. It might seem perverse to complain about this after an episode which finally brought Nick to the altar, but there's something a little circular even there; man marries woman with whom he's already been living for years - I hardly think we need to place ambulances on stand-by in case frailer viewers become overwhelmed with excitement.

The greatest frustration, though, is generated by Bamber's unspoken love for Miss Stephens, which threatens to tremble on the imminent point of declaration until the very crack of doom. Every week they are levered into suggestive intimacy and every week Bamber shies from the opportunity. Even worse, last night seemed to offer a setback after Miss Stephens had unwisely downed two schooners of sherry and kicked up a hooley at the reception.

Bamber looked thoroughly disapproving, though it might simply be that the true nature of his feelings has been borne upon him for the first time. In which case we've only six or seven episodes to wait before whatever would count as consummation in this monstrously decorous affair. Just to keep you going, the episode also contained a sub-plot about the autumnal tenderness between two pensioners, which was so coyly twee that it made the Yellow Pages adverts look like Ibsen on a gloomy day.