I'm setting up a table, for which I'd like the first column to have a background of a middle gray. According to the wiki, something like this should work:

\starttable[|p(4cm)|p(11.75cm)|]
\HL
\BL[1]\AR
\VL\tfa{\bf A bit of text}\VL A lot of text, which will be broken up into several lines\VL\AR
\HL
\stoptable

There are two problems here: (1) the background covers only the line of "A bit of text" and not the entire cell, and (2) the background color is too light.

I experimented with this from the wiki:

\starttabulate[|CR{red}c|CC{yellow}c|CM{green}c|CL{blue}c|]
\NC test \NC test \NC test \NC test \NC \NR
\NC test \NC test \NC test \NC test \NC \NR
\NC test \NC test \NC test \NC test \NC \NR
\NC test \NC test \NC test \NC test \NC \NR
\stoptabulate

but it produced no colors at all (and yes, I do have colors turned on).

How can I achieve the effect I'm after?

Thanks,
Alasdair