TELEVISION

Wednesday, April 30

KRAFT MUSIC HALL&$151;WITH PETER COOK AND DUDLEY MOORE FROM LONDON (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). Featuring two of the Beyond the Fringe zanies and their guests, Anne Bancroft and Mel Torme, in the first of two specials produced in England.

THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION: THE FIRST TOO DAYS (NET, 9-10 p.m.). Exam time for the new Administration on its activities, policies and general deportment under the scrutiny of journalists and specialists in Government affairs.

Thursday, May 1

NET PLAYHOUSE (NET, 8-9:30 p.m.). Jack Richardson's prizewinning play, The Prodigal, puts the Orestes legend into contemporary terms, with the disaffected hero at odds with the politics and wars of his elders. With Peter Galman, John Heffernan and Kim Hunter.

JACK PAAR IN AFRICA (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). Home movies (photographed mostly by Jack and his daughter Randy with 16-mm., hand-held cameras) record the Paar family's six-week visit to Uganda and Kenya, including a call on the Pygmies and a look at fierce Masai tribesmen at work as cowboys, outfitted in the traditional red blankets and not so traditional bowler hats.

Friday, May 2

HALLMARK HALL OF FAME (NBC, 8:30-10 p.m.). First rebroadcast since 1961 of Victoria Regina, with Julie Harris as Queen Victoria and James Donald as Prince Albert. Events in the Queen's life from 1837 through her Diamond Jubilee in 1897 are dramatized with aid from Pamela Brown, Basil Rathbone and Inga Swenson.

FRIDAY NIGHT MOVIES (CBS, 9-11 p.m.).

There is a heavy load of sentimentality in Gigot (1962), but Jackie Gleason's moving performance as the mute hero verges on genius.

Saturday, May 3

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL (NBC, 2 p.m. to conclusion). Philadelphia Phillies v. St. Louis Cardinals at St. Louis.

WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS (ABC, 5-6:30 p.m.). Trenton "200" Automobile Race and the Gold Skate Roller Skating Classic from Madison Square Garden.

THE KENTUCKY DERBY (CBS, 5-6 p.m.). Wit and expert knowledge will be provided by Heywood Hale Broun and Eddie Arcaro; Jack Whitaker will serve as host; Chic Anderson will call the race at the 95th running of the opener of the triple-crown events. From Louisville.

Sunday, May 4

CAMERA THREE (CBS, 11-11:30 a.m.). Los Indios Tabajaras present a wide variety of romantic guitar music, some transcribed from classical piano and violin scores.

NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE (CBS, 2-4:30 p.m.). Stanley Cup playoff.

H. ANDREW WILLIAMS' MAGIC LANTERN SHOW COMPANY (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). Music is the main magic, since Andy's guests are Aretha Franklin, Roger Miller, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66.

Monday, May 5

THE BEST ON RECORD: THE GRAMMY AWARDS SHOW (NBC, 8-9 p.m.). The announcement of Record of the Year will be made after competing Grammy winners--The Beatles (Hey Jude), Jeannie C. Riley (Harper Valley P.T.A.), Glen Campbell (Wichita Lineman), Jose Feliciano (Light My Fire), Mason Williams (Classical Gas), Simon and Garfunkel (Mrs. Robinson), Bobby Goldsboro (Honey) and the Los Angeles cast of Hair (Let the Sunshine In and Aquarius)--have done their stuff. A star-studded crowd of "presenters" will also be on hand.

Tuesday, May 6

NET FESTIVAL (NET, 9-10 p.m.). A young violin virtuoso and Harvard undergraduate is the subject of "The World of James Buswell," in which he chats with friends and mentors and performs Bach and Stravinsky.

THE LENNON SISTERS SHOW (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). Previewing their fall series with Jimmy Durante, the sisters' other guests include Bobby Goldsboro and Hines, Hines and Dad.

THEATER

On Broadway

1776. There is a degradation of intellect, taste and dignity about this musical, which presents history as painted by a sidewalk sketch artist. The Peter Stone book depends on the audience to expect the expectable and to bring along its own worn coloring crayons to the roles.

PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM features Woody Allen playing Woody Allen, the compleat neurotic, with his nimble jokes and woefully unconfident presence.

FORTY CARATS. Julie Harris plays a middle-aged divorcee who is bedded by a lad of 22, while her teen-age daughter runs off with a wealthy widower of 45. Directed with crisp agility by Abe Burrows, the show is never less than civilized fun.

HADRIAN VII is a deft dramatization by Peter Luke of fantasy and fact in the life of Frederick William Rolfe, an unsuccessful candidate for priesthood who dreamed of becoming Pope. Alec McCowen gives a commanding performance as Rolfe.

Off Broadway

ADAPTATION--NEXT. Two one-acters, both directed by Elaine May. Miss May's own play, Adaptation, is the game of life staged as a TV contest. Terrence McNally's Next features James Coco in a splendid performance as an overaged potential draftee.

TO BE YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK is a warm, loving tribute to the late playwright Lorraine Hansberry, put together from her own writings and presented by an able, interracial cast.

DAMES AT SEA, with a ministage and a cast of only six, is a delightful spoof of the musical movies of the 1930s, with all their intricate dance routines and big, glittering production numbers.

CINEMA

THE LOVES OF ISADORA. Vanessa Redgrave performs magnificently as Isadora Duncan, that quintessential free spirit of the early 20th century. Director Karel Reisz starts at the end of Isadora's life and works back wards and sideways to achieve dramatic contrast, but the script lacks a unifying point of view.

GOODBYE, COLUMBUS. Philip Roth's stinging, perceptive 1959 novella has been turned into a slick little film about the glories and tribulations of young love. Director Larry Peerce is often self-indulgent, but he has extracted two attractive performances from Richard Benjamin and a stunning newcomer named Ali MacGraw.

STOLEN KISSES. Francois Truffaut's newest film is a lyrical souvenir of adolescence that fairly bursts with its director's exuberance, his warm sense of humor and his subtle, never condescending portrait of the excesses and errors of youth.

THE NIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING DAY. Director Hubert Cornfield transforms a rather routine kidnaping story into a surreal seminar on the poetics of violence. Trimmer than he has been in years, Marlon Brando is also back in top acting form as a hipster-criminal.

THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU. Looking for something to take the family to on a rainy Saturday afternoon? This is it. The kids will love all the improbable derring-do, and parents may find themselves getting an occasional laugh out of all the frantic but genial proceedings.

I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW). If it were not for the sex scenes, this film probably would never have been imported. The rather conventional story of a confused adolescent girl in Sweden is interminable and unenlightened; like the much publicized sex scenes themselves, it is finally and fatally passionless.

THE FIXER. John Frankenheimer has directed this adaptation of Bernard Malamud's somewhat flawed novel with care and dedication. Alan Bates, Dirk Bogarde and Ian Holm are all transcendent in their roles.

THE STALKING MOON. Stalwart Gregory Peck battles a crazed redskin bent on bloody revenge in this rather self-conscious western thriller that manages a few surprises on its way to a predictable denouement.

SWEET CHARITY. Shirley MacLaine is sometimes cute, sometimes arch in this overblown musical about a dance-hall hostess searching for love. A lot of money and a lot of energy have been expended on this superproduction, and most of both has gone to waste.

RED BEARD is an Oriental Pilgrim's Progress in which Japan's Akira Kurosawa explores the psychology of an ambitious young doctor so deftly that one man's frailties and strengths add up to a picture of humanity itself.

THE SHAME. Ingmar Bergman tells a painful parable of the horrors of war and the moral responsibility of the artist. This is his 29th film and one of his best, with resonant performances by Liv Ullman, Max von Sydow and Gunnar Bjoernstrand.

BOOKS

Best Reading

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: A LIFE STORY, by Carlos Baker. The long awaited official biography offers the first complete and cohesive account of a gifted, troubled, flamboyant figure who has too often been recollected in fragmentary and partisan memoirs.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Through flashbacks to the fire-bombing of Dresden in World War II, this agonizing, outrageous, funny and profoundly rueful fable tries to say something about the timeless nature of human cruelty and self-protective indifference.

URGENT COPY, by Anthony Burgess. In a collection of brilliant short pieces about a long list of literary figures (from Dickens to Dylan Thomas), the author brings many a critical chicken home to roost.

REFLECTIONS UPON A SINKING SHIP, by Gore Vidal. A collection of perceptively sardonic essays about the Kennedys, Tarzan, Susan Sontag, pornography, the most recent Republican presidential convention, and other aspects of what Vidal sees as the declining West.

EDWARD LEAR, THE LIFE OF A WANDERER, by Vivien Noakes. In this excellent biography, the Victorian painter, poet, fantasist and author of A Book of Nonsense is seen as a kindly, gifted man who courageously tried to stay cheerful despite an astonishing array of diseases.

THE MILITARY PHILOSOPHERS, by Anthony Powell. The ninth volume in his serial novel, A Dance to the Music of Time, expertly convoys Powell's innumerable characters through the intrigue, futility, boredom and courage of World War II.

TORREGRECA, by Ann Cornelisen. Full of an orphan's love for her adopted town, the author has turned a documentary of human adversity in southern Italy into the unflinching autobiography of a divided heart.

THE MARX BROTHERS AT THE MOVIES, by Paul D. Zimmerman and Burt Goldblatt. Next to a reel of their films, this excellent book offers the best possible way to meet (or revisit) the Marx Brothers in the happy time when they had all their energy and all their laughs.

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, by Thomas Wiseman. Wiseman's novel about the friendship between a half-Jew and a Nazi, before and during World War II in Vienna, is a brilliant psychological study of how two very different men can become so fatally entwined that each determines the course of the other's life.

THE GODFATHER, by Mario Puzo. For the Mafia, as for other upwardly mobile Americans, the name of the game is respectability and status--after the money and power have been secured. An excellent novel.

Best Sellers

FICTION

1. Portnoy's Complaint, Roth (1 last week)

2. The Godfather, Puzo (2)

3. The Salzburg Connection, Maclnnes (3)

4. Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home, Kemelman (4)

5. Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut

6. A Small Town in Germany, le Carre

7. Airport, Hailey (5)

8. The Lost Queen, Lofts (8)

9. Force 10 from Navarone, MacLean 10. Except for Me and Thee, West (9)

NONFICTION

1. The 900 Days, Salisbury (1)

2. Miss Craig's 21-Day Shape-Up Program for Men and Women, Craig (2)

3. Jennie, Martin (7)

4. The Money Game, 'Adam Smith' (3)

5. The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, Goldman (4)

6. The Trouble with Lawyers, Bloom (5)

7. The Arms of Krupp, Manchester (6)

8. Instant Replay, Kramer (9)

9. The Joys of Yiddish, Rosten 10. The Valachi Papers, Maas (8)

* All times E.D.T.

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