Powerpoint: Theatre of the mind

By MICHELE HEWITSON

An art exhibition consisting of blank walls and a few scraps of paper is showing in Britain at the moment. On the scraps of paper are written descriptions of works of art. The show is called Exhibition to be constructed in your mind.

It's a gimmick, of course — the fact that it's being held at a place called the Custard Factory should give a few clues.

It's an idea I'm warming to. Television to be constructed in your mind? Why not. It's only as much of a nonsense as an art exhibition that demands you use your imagination to visualise it. The visual and televisual arts both depend on the image. It's not exactly unheard of, either, for paintings to have a script — it's called a catalogue.

Television once did do television that relied on, even trusted, the viewer to do a bit of mind work. The most celebrated example of which, at least in our house, is the achingly slow, lovingly shot, Brideshead Revisited, where almost nothing happens for what seems to be an excellent 50 per cent of the time. Lights, camera, extreme languidness, thank you actors. It had, of course, actors (and a director) who understood that you can convey more in a look, a gesture, a turning away, than you can with non-stop gabble.

Too sumptuous, too slow, too smart. Too expensive to make. Its like will never be seen again. But any argument that it will never be done again because we've evolved to the point where we think in sound bites is simply not borne out. Every time we set off on our twice-yearly Brideshead voyage, other people have got to Videon before us. Why, sometimes we have to wait a whole week to see the next episode. Quite like the olden days.

The olden days are with us in Pioneer House (Sunday, 7pm, TV One), in which a 21st century family get to play time travellers and go back to the early 1900s.

"It isn't the set of a movie; nor is it a museum," says the voice-over describing the Grey Lynn abode that has been done over with mind-boggling attention to 1900 detail. We're shown this make-over in mind-numbing detail: it was like watching Changing Rooms in a time warp. (It wouldn't have been very interesting back then, either.)

In this show, billed as a social experiment, we got to see the families audition for the experience a la True Bliss. Which lucky family would be chosen? The revelation was something of a let down, given that every media outlet in town had already visited. We already knew too much. Holmes had been by with scones and a question about the women's sanitary arrangements. Too much information.

It's more of the same: a construction project where each nail is banged in to the accompaniment of much banging on.

TV can do it. It can let us use our imaginations. It can show that it trusts us. Take last week's Coro Street cliffhanger. Never mind all that hostage drama and the "would Curly's relationship survive his almost being shot by his gun-wielding cop girlfriend?" question. That was all just window-dressing.

The real drama was happening in a small locked room where two ageing and unlikely Lotharios were forced to confront years of antagonism and jealousy. Ken Barlow and Mike Baldwin bonding?

It was Shakespearean in its simplicity — and its daring. Nothing much happened in that room. We watched two men facing themselves and their foibles.

Blank walls and a few scraps of paper called a script. What happens next can be constructed in your mind.