Uncut British TV Shows Are Businessman’s Cup of Tea : Imports: Brian Clewer’s Continental Shop in Santa Monica specializes in unedited versions of programs that some viewers might find offensive.

Brian Clewer is fed up with British television programs being edited into pabulum by squeamish American TV executives. So Clewer, who owns a British-oriented business in Santa Monica that is a combination video store, import shop and travel agency, is making the unedited version of “Portrait of a Marriage,” which is airing Sunday nights in truncated form on PBS, available to anyone who wants to see the real thing.

PBS has made two versions of the BBC-produced program, which tells the story of the lesbian relationship between English writer Vita Sackville-West and her girlhood friend Violet Trefusis. One version cuts 34 minutes from what was originally a four-hour production, and the other, intended for particularly conservative U.S. markets, has 36 minutes of cuts.

“It’s reached the point in this country that the pressure groups are so powerful that even PBS (is) scared of them,” said Clewer, who recently ended an 18-year stint as host of a local radio program, “Cynics Choice,” which aired on different stations over the years and featured British comedy and drama. “When PBS has to go to the point of making separate versions for separate stations, I think that’s pretty pathetic.”

Clewer said that he has copies of the original British version of “Portrait of a Marriage,” and he’s willing to share them with those who are interested, free of charge. He asks only that borrowers leave a deposit on the tapes.

“ ‘Portrait of a Marriage’ has been chopped up to such an extent that they’re creating a different picture out of it,” said Clewer, who was born near London but has lived in the United States since 1961. “The version we have is completely different.”

“Portrait of a Marriage” is not the only British television program available at Clewer’s store, the Continental Shop. Clewer offers for sale and rental a catalogue of commercially distributed tapes hefty enough to make an Anglophile’s head spin, with everything from cricket matches to more than 100 versions of Sherlock Holmes stories.

In addition, Clewer’s brother, who lives in London, regularly sends homemade tapes of current British shows. It is these off-air tapes--one of which is “Portrait of a Marriage”--that are available free of charge.

Videotapes crowd Clewer’s establishment, lining all of its walls and forcing the more standard import fare of teas, English candies and European albums to the center aisles.

Near the back, just in front of the small office Clewer uses for his travel agency, are four television sets, each blaring a British television program that is being transferred from the tape format used in England to a tape suitable for American TVs.

Some of the store’s business involves transferring tapes of home videos from England--weddings and family affairs, for example--but much of the traffic is in the tapes of TV shows.

“We keep a screening library, which is used by cinema students, writers, people in the entertainment business,” said Lisa Clewer, who was Clewer’s second wife (he’s now married to his fourth, Suzanne) and is now an employee and good friend. “They can take (a tape) home with a deposit, which they get back when they return it.”

In fact, according to both Clewers, Hollywood TV writers unabashedly scan the British shows for ideas. Currently, the pair claim, at least three new shows are in development that are based on ideas taken from English shows borrowed from the Continental Shop.

“We see American TV shows all the time where we see lines that are right out of material we cover,” Lisa Clewer said.