Tar Heel public TV woos you with festival

Publication: Wilmington Star-News
Date: 1989-03-03
Author: Ben Steelman
Page: 1D
Language: English

To help persuade viewers to send in checks and, possibly, to get new fans to tune in — N.C. public TV is airing some of its best programming of the year.

If you feel like being a couch potato, this might be the classiest weekend of the year to put down roots.

Tonight, the UNC Center for Public Television launches "Festival '89," its annual on-air fundraising drive.

To help persuade viewers to send in checks or pledges — and, possibly, to get new fans to tune in — the North Carolina public-TV network is airing some of its best programming of the year.

The campaign opens tonight with a double-barreled musical salute to the Tar Heel State.

At 9 p.m. the. Center will rebroadcast one of its most popular specials, North Carolina Is My Home, a portrait in words and music by CBS newscaster Charles Kuralt and Charlotte pianist-composer Looms McGlohon.

Kuralt, who was born at Wilmington's James Welker Memorial Hospital, returned to his hometown Dec. 2 for a live performance of the show. Public TV's version of North Carolina Is My Home was taped at East Carolina University in Greenville.

At 10:15 tonight, the network will present A Masterpiece Evening, a concert by the North Carolina Symphony featuring favorite themes from the PBS drama anthology Masterpiece Theater.

Jean Marsh, the British actress who helped create Masterpiece Theater's most famous series, Upstairs, Downstairs (and who costarred in it as Rose, the maid), was the emcee for the concert, taped last fall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Colin Curr, the British cellist, will be featured soloist for the theme to another series, Paradise Postponed — a "theme" also known as Elgar's E minor Concerto for cello and orchestra.

Interspersed between the music will be filmclips from Masterpiece Theater episodes.

And that's not all.

Throughout the weekend, and throughout the 17-day festival campaign, N.C. Public Television will try to have something for everybody.

For science-fiction buffs, and the proverbial kids of all ages, a new selection of Doctor Who episodes is airing at 1.30 p.m. Saturdays.

This week, Sylvester McCoy, the latest British actor to portray the whimsical Time Lord, takes on some old villains from the BBC series in Remembrance of the Daleks.

On March 11, a Doctor Who marathon is scheduled with two complete serials back to back.

For older fans, Saturday night's lineup includes The Glenn Miller Band Reunion at 8 p.m., with original members of the big band from the 1930s and '40s playing some of Miller's biggest hits.

Following at 10 p.m. Saturday is Showbiz Goes to War, a documentary on Hollywood's contribution to the war effort during World War II. David Steinberg plays host for the anthology of newsreel clips, radio shows and movies reflecting the canteens, bond drives and campaigns that stars and directors joined to raise morale.

(A related documentary, Entertaining the Troops, from 6 to 8 p.m. March 11 will follow the World War II tours by Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Jack Benny, Dorothy Lamour, the Andrews Sisters and other performers.)

Of course, public TV is not all glitz and glamour. Folks used to cull it "educational TV." N.C. Public Television still devotes its morning and early-afternoon weekday schedule to programs supplementing school curriculums. And those who want to improve their minds can still find plenty of challenging material.

At 4:45 p.m. Sunday, the network will show The Masks of Eternity, part of the acclaimed Interview series Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth.

In a program taped before his death in 1987, Campbell, an authority on world mythologies and author of The Hero With 1,000 Faces and other books, talked with Bill Moyers about the contrasting (and sometimes similar views of God, religion and eternity, reflected in the thought of the Christian Church fathers, East Asian Buddhists, Navaho Indians and modern psychologists sutn as Carl G. Jung.

Following at 6 p.m. Sunday is an encore showing of National Geographic Celebrates Its 100th Anniversary. Film footage and archival photos re-create the excitement of explorers and St Ira-fists whose work was supported by the society and its magii2ine from Commodore Robert E Peary's controversial trek to the North Pole to Jane Goodall ground-breaking research on chimpanzees.

Tar Heel public TV woos you with festival

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