TELEVISION / BRIEFING: Animated discussions

The animator Bob Godfrey does not work on Schwarzenegger- sized budgets; in fact, as one of his collaborators puts it, 'a shoestring would be a luxury.' Nevertheless, as Bob Godfrey - A Life in Shorts shows, he thrives on adversity, cheerfully cutting and pasting from the most unlikely sources (an Abyssinian fire-eater, The Third Man), and apparently furnishing his shambolic Soho office entirely from skips. This illuminating profile for FOUR- MATIONS: ASPECTS OF COMEDY (9pm C4) examines the playful mind behind not only the children's classics Roobarb and Henry's Cat, but also the first British cartoons to be awarded an X certificate. Godfrey has been responsible for some of the best of British comedy over the past three decades, working with the Goons and Terry Gilliam (the scene in Godfrey's Revolution where a piano lid is slammed on Beethoven's fingers is pure Python). And in 1974 he won an Oscar for Great (shown last Sunday). Godfrey's work is testament to the creativity that can spring from chaos. But it takes its toll; one of his editors suggests that many people who go to Godfrey's office might be better off visiting the neurological hospital next- door.

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