Farndale's Got Talent

I'm drawing a veil on the recent debacle concerning Gordon and David and wish to use this blog to vent forth a little on something not really connected to our current show but has really got my dander up.

All this fuss about this Britain's Got Talent programme. I have to say that I haven't actually watched a lot of it. Probably about an hour all told because I constantly find myself shouting at the television about the amateurishness of it all. Some of the performances I saw were really poor - and I'm talking about people who got through to the late stages, not just the rejects. And don't even get me started on precocious children bursting into tears because they forgot their words (not that I can imagine what that is like as it has never happened to me) to get a second chance. It was like Violet Elizabeth Bott in the Just William books ("I'll scweam, and scweam and scweam"). Grow up, dear. Mind you, I blame the mothers.

I also think some of the - admittedly few - ladies on the show could also have dressed themselves far better than they did, but I suppose they take their lead from that Amanda Holden woman. And can you believe that over 18 million people watched that drivel? I think that is a sad indictment of our society. And now that tedious Big Brother thing is coming back on. I mean, dear God, what lowest common denominator rubbish that is. Thank goodness for the good old BBC occasionally showing some programmes that require an audience to have an IQ of over 45 to appreciate them (I gather Dame Judi is making a Cranford Christmas special - hurrah!). I believe they are also filming the RSC's latest production of Hamlet but that will only get decent ratings because of that Dr Who chap being in it.

I think the point I am trying to make is that there is a lot of home-grown talent that doesn't get onto television and therefore isn't supported as well as it should be. It's not as if some drama group could go on that programme and present an excerpt from a play, is it? That's the beauty of live theatre. There's a lot of talent and entertainment on your own doorstep, but you need to make a small effort to go and see it, rather than just sitting down on your sofas and waiting for it to pop up on your goggle boxes. Like Godot, you will wait and it will never come. And no doubt that last sentence will be lost on most people.