TV review

AMERICA expected an easy victory when it went to war in Vietnam to stop the spread of world Communism. By the time US troops left in 1973, some two million American and Vietnamese were dead or wounded. Not long after, the country was united under Communist rule.

America, this absorbing documentary explained through new research and testimony from both sides, won every battle but lost the war. This was a story of botched US intelligence reports, failed bombing raids, the wrong sort of weapons and the willingness of the Vietnamese to die for their cause.

Watching this programme, it was difficult to divorce what happened in Vietnam to what's taking place in Iraq today. Circumstances, as well as motives, may be different but the feeling persists that the Americans repeated history by taking on something for which they were ill-equipped, mentally and militarily.

By 1968, half a million American soldiers were in Vietnam, fighting both the regular North Vietnamese army and guerrilla Vietcong in South Vietnam. Partly, the problem was that the Americans didn't really know who the enemy was.

It was revealed that a Vietcong cell planned the Tet offensive at their HQ situated above a noodle bar where American soliders were eating. US intelligence failed to pick this up.

This was a new kind of war, a media-saturated conflict in which TV played a key role for the first time. Although the Tet offensive was a US victory, across the world it was seen as a North Vietnamese victory.

At first, the US media was uncritical of the war. As casualties mounted, reporters such as Walter Cronkite began to question the conflict. Film and photographs of casualties brought home the horror of war to ordinary Americans.

US soldiers weren't motivated as their enemies were. Morale was affected as the war dragged on and no progress was made in bringing hostilities to an end. They were a conventional army fighting an unconventional war. Whole Vietnamese communities - men, women, young, old - joined the fighting. One woman told how she became a volunteer fighter at 13 after her family was killed.

The Vietcong outfoxed US surveillance teams by keeping open the Ho Chi Min trail, the 1,000-mile supply route. Bombing failed to hit targets with the Vietcong pointing the Americans towards false targets.

With US planes on daily bombing raids and spraying toxic chemicals over the land, the Communists moved underground into a complex of tunnels. Anthropologist Simone Clifford Jaeger squeezed through a narrow trap door - too small for big Americans but not slimmer Vietnamese - to give us a tour. She could barely stand up but whole families lived down there for years on end. There were schools, hospitals and even theatres in the tunnels.

America was a technologically advanced superpower whose soldiers had the latest M16 weapons. But the North Vietnamese's AK37, designed 20 years before, could be used easily by untrained men, women and children.

Booby traps - pits with sharpened bamboo stakes in the bottom - were cheap and easy to make for the Vietcong - and frighteningly effective.

Sean Lock, Newcastle Comedy Festival, Exhibition Park

INSIDE a big canvass tent on a dreary wet Sunday night in a Newcastle park might not seem like the most salubrious or inspiring time or place to watch comedy. But the crowd watching Sean Lock's turn at this year's Newcastle Comedy Festival soon forgot their surroundings once the talented funnyman got into full flow.

Lock, without doubt one of the most inventive and funny comics on the circuit, treated the brave souls who had made it out to a brilliant and scatological monologue taking in everything from the Battle of Hastings to buying fruit in Senegal.

Lock's stand-up, though it occasionally flies close to the wind, is always redeemed by the comic's charming stage persona. He is the kind of bloke who'd insult you at a party but still manage to convince you it was all just a joke - which, of course, it is.

He rails against America, hilariously lampooning their obsession with size. He tells the audience that he went to a town in the US where there was a 30-foot high thermometer claiming to be the biggest in the world.

He explains that as the second-biggest thermometer in the world is probably just normal-sized, the US townsfolk were wasting their time a little building one bigger than a building. "Even a thermometer that was knee-high would have won by miles," he says, shrugging his shoulders.

Paul Willis

Copplia, Ballet Russe,

Durham Gala Theatre

I T was a sell-out performance, and the touring company Ballet Russe lived up to the audience's expectations. This Swansea-based group have been rehearsing together for five years, and come from all over Russia.

Comic ballet Coppelia is set in a European peasant village, and features young lovers Swanhilda and Franz. When Franz falls in love with a doll in the doll-maker's window, Swanhilda conspires with the doll-maker to play a trick on him. She dresses up as the doll, and then surprises Franz when he climbs in the window to seduce his new love. Repentant, Franz apologises, they marry and live happily ever after.

This timeless story was beautifully rendered by the Ballet Russe: their dancing was expressive and lively, making the story accessible to all. Their grace was further complimented by gestures and facial expressions, full of passionate, truly Russian, emotion.

Chika Temma, originally from Japan, was stunning in the lead role of Swanhilda, and Viktor Pivovarov was both cheeky and charming as her roguish but loveable suitor. Local girls from the Bishop Auckland Youth Ballet appeared in supporting roles.

The second act, set in the doll-maker's workshop, was superb. The dancers' effortless execution of crisp mechanical movements was by turns breathtaking and comical. The perfectly co-ordinated drummer boy doll was a particular favourite; Franz accidentally sets him off while begging for Swanhilda's forgiveness. The poor thing drums so hard he falls off his chair!

Rachell Bignell