The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron
Channel4 executive: "OMG, OMG! BBC just had their poetry season and it was so supercool! What do we do?!"
Other Channel4 executive: "Is there anyway we can make poetry really sensationalist and entertaining? I mean, I am not not opposed to clever things but poetry is really stuffy, y'know?"
Channel4 Executive: "Uhm.... how about Lord Byron? He was not stuffy. He slept with his half-sister, was 'mad, bad and dangerous to know', wanted to liberate Greece, went a-roving with the Shelleys and wrote really amusing poetry about eating spaniels."
Other Channel4 Executive: "We need a celeb angle. We need.. we could send Rupert Everett around Europe whilst he settles into his botched facelift - and he could talk about Lord Byron's sex life. The incest bit and how he fancied Percy Bysshe Shelley?"
Rupert Everett: "I'll only do it if I get to say naughty words, show off my naked bum, swim in my underwear with cute semi-naked boys, eat caviar with Donatella Versace, and pretend that Lord Byron is really me, me, me!"
Channel4 Executives: "You're on!"
August 5th, 2009 - 14:41
So … are you telling me you are not watching it?
August 5th, 2009 - 15:32
Right on the button. Even Byron (whose ‘poetry’ I despise) deserves better than the dumb inanity of what passes for ‘research’ at channel 4. Its so depressing. And Everett’s gurning phizog makes me lose the will to live. . .
August 5th, 2009 - 22:21
@Kate. When I was 18 I was infatuated with Byron. I also had a thing for Rupert Brooke. I still rather like Don Juan – it is possibly the only piece of literature which can make me think eating a spaniel dog is remotely funny. But that C4 series was a piece of.. I can’t believe Jon Snow works for C4.
@DK: Of course i watched! And shouted at the telly. And hid my face in my hands whenever Rupert Everett was getting his bits out (which happened frequently).