A Little bit of Gaiman and Laurie

[steepholm]

I turned on Radio 4 twice today, and both times happened to catch a woman interviewer talking at length about his long and varied career to a multi-talented Englishman who's made it big in the States. In each case, moreover, they have in their past a partnership with a National Treasure. In the case of Hugh Laurie on Desert Island Discs that would be Stephen Fry. For Neil Gaiman on Open Book it's Terry Pratchett, whose Small Gods does service for Jeeves and Wooster in this analogy.

They were both accomplished interviewees, but Mariella Frostrup came up with a real clunker of an introduction to Gaiman. I quote: "The children's books and comics came first, including the award-winning Sandman series; and then, in 1995, came the publication of his novel Neverwhere. This dark, compelling adventure into a secret world, lived beneath the streets of London as we know it, marked the arrival of an auspicious new talent in the realms of fantasy fiction."

If I may slip into Comic Book Guy mode:

a) The children's books did not come first. Coraline and The Graveyard Book appeared later, as did the picture books.
b) Sandman is not a children's comic.
c) Good Omens was published in 1991, thus predating Neverwhere by several years.
d) If Sandman didn't mark the arrival of a new talent in the realms of fantasy fiction, what did?
e) Neverwhere was broadcast and published in 1996, not 1995.

That's quite a lot of errors for less than 60 words, written presumably by paid researchers. I can't help but see a couple of familiar prejudices lurking beneath it, too. Children's books must be an apprenticeship for real books, right? Comics aren't proper fiction, right? And if the facts don't fit our narrative, let's reorder them to fit!

Good interview, but (as CBG would say) Worst Intro Ever!

Comments

[kalypso]

I was startled to find myself exchanging emails with the producers of Front Row the other week after firing off a grumpy email via their website when I heard the 7 p.m. trailer describe The White Queen as "another Tudor drama". (Obviously I wanted it described as Plantagenet drama.)

I do this sort of thing from time to time without getting anything more than an auto-reply, so I was stunned to get a thank you during The Archers saying they'd correct it during the main show.

I then unbent to say that, although I was unfamiliar with the novels on which the drama was based, I presumed it would end with Eliz Woodville surveying the dawn of the Tudor age.

This brought another friendly reply from the same producer. Meanwhile, the senior producer chipped in as well, and I ended up getting five emails altogether! The gist of it seemed to be that they knew it was about Plantagenets, and had given the presenter a script that referred to "historical drama" but he'd put a Tudor gloss on it. I listened to the main interview, and by then he'd made it "Plantagenets and Tudors", which was fair enough.

My vague point is that getting the research right doesn't necessarily guarantee that the presenter will reproduce it correctly, though that does sound like rather a lot of errors in two sentences.

[steepholm]

That's reassuring to an extent! In my experience, it's pretty hit and miss as to whether errors get corrected. The most egregious I ever pointed out (the one I mentioned on this blog a while ago, that had Martin Luther being best buds with J. S. Bach) was neither corrected nor acknowledged.

[kalypso]

I said to them how surprised I was to get a personal response, let alone a thank-you, but they said it was important because it enabled them to make sure it was right in the broadcast. So whether the Front Row team are just more responsive or whether it made a significant difference that I reacted to a trail swifly enough to influence the main programme I don't know. It made me feel very positive about them, however, and also made me watch The White Queen a couple of days later, which I hadn't planned to do, as I suddenly found myself feeling proprietorial about it. Not sure I'll stick it out, though. legionseagle and I think they should rewrite it as a sitcom about Jacquetta Woodville and Warwick auditioning potential kings, and call it The Lions, the Witch and the Warlord. The first episode, at her brilliant suggestion, being "Will the real Edmund Mortimer please stand up?"

[steepholm]

That's cute! :)