On TV

THERE'S nothing like porn disguised as factual programming to help the late night ratings. Makers can show clips that stay just on the right side of what's permissable, on the pretext of illustrating the documentary. C4 is at it again, with a programme examining aspects of the sex industry. The opener, Porn Shutdown, had its fair share of grunting and groaning but at the core was a deadly serious story of how, as the eager beaver narrator put it, "HIV came to Porno-land".

Last year the $9bn a year US porn industry was brought to a standstill after an actor tested positive. "All it took was one man and one rogue porn shoot to bring the whole industry to its knees," said the narrator, using an unfortunate turn of phrase as the kneeling position is a favourite in such movies.

The situation was nothing to joke about. Some 4,000 porn films are shot in the San Fernando Valley each year. Around 1,000 performers have sex up to 40 times a month, with 60 gallons of semen being ejaculated for the cameras annually. Who, I wondered, was keeping count?

As the vast majority of these films are shot without the performers using condoms, it's difficult to view the makers as responsible people. When one of their number, Darren James, tested positive for HIV, you might say they had only themselves to blame. The repercussions for an industry in which, as someone put it, "pretty much everyone has sex with everyone else every few months", were potentially catastrophic.

Dr Sharon Mitchell worked in the porn industry for 20 years but, after a horrific attack and rape in her home, retrained as a doctor and runs the Aim Healthcare Foundation. Porn actors are tested for HIV once a month at her clinic. That adds up between 30 and 70 people a day. "During the gang bang months it goes up a little bit more," she added.

When James tested positive, she put her emergency plan into action. A list of his sexual partners and their sexual partners was compiled and the 40 or so people quarantined. Several porn companies shut down production to stop the spread of the disease.

Mitchell may be the Florence Nightingale of the porn world, but she worries that she's become complicit in helping the industry become more extreme. She knows that as long as the public buy them, films in which condoms aren't used will continue to be made by the likes of Max Hardcore. "We make entertainment and let's see how far we can take it," said the man whose movies feature the degradation of women and vomiting.

The victims in all this are people like Laura Roxx, a Canadian who had the misfortune to make her first porn movie with an infected Darren James. She is HIV positive and looking into taking legal action against the makers of the film. That case would give the porn industry a whole new crisis.

Northern Sinfonia, Sage, Gateshead

THE colourful life of border gypsy Jamie Allen was resurrected in a world premiere at the Sage Gateshead - on what could have been the very spot where he stole the horse that led to his imprisonment and death in a Durham gaol in 1810. Just as the Northumbrian piper had packed so much into his long life, so Newcastle-born saxophonist and composer John Harle managed to fit about every musical style and theatrical device into the folk opera. Northern Sinfonia performed the Ballad of Jamie Allan, with the catchy libretto by Tom Pickard. Kathryn Tickell composed some magical passages on her Northumbrian Pipes.

Jamie, who became a legendary rogue and talented musician patronised by the aristocracy, was portrayed with penetrating insight by the charismatic baritone Omar Ebrahim. He was perfectly counterbalanced by his consort Annie Bennet, played by jazz/rock/R&B singing star Sarah Jane Morris. Her command of the lower end of the register with her deep earthy voice was a treat, while both her and Ebrahim's tones were perfectly married in the duets. The score straddled several musical genres, with the ever-shifting tapestry threatening to overwhelm the senses at times. The opera, supplemented by video and photographic footage from Tom Pickard, was challenging but rewarding. Jamie died a miserable death in Durham - his spirits would have been lifted by the spectacle.

Gavin Engelbrecht