Glass Houses, Stones ... and Jimmy McGovern

[dorsetgirl]

.
I’m not a great one for Schadenfreude, but the new Radio Times has just given me the best laugh for a while:



I posted recently about Jimmy McGovern’s attack on writers of Doctor Who, costume drama, police procedural and, by implication, quite a lot else. His stated ethos is apparently

"The only way to tell stories on TV is to convince people that what they are seeing

is actually happening now and is real.”

So I laughed quite a lot to read what ex-Colonel Tim Collins of the British Army in Iraq had to say about Mr McGovern’s new drama, Accused:

“The constant and slightly contrived use of foul and abusive language and the generous lashings of gratuitous violence all add up to a desperate plea to be seen as shocking and cutting edge.”

“Having served in the British Army for 23 years I can unequivocally say that this has absolutely no basis in the reality that I understand Mr McGovern likes to root his dramas in.”

“In this fantasy world of Jimmy McGovern there are no adults, no officers and no control.”

“…in Jimmy’s world there are pubs in Afghanistan…”

“My biggest worry is that the parents and partners of soldiers serving in Afghanistan will regard this as in some way believable.”


Thank you, Radio Times!

Comments

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

I'm so pleased to see that someone shares my opinion.

[dorsetgirl.livejournal.com]

I don't think we're the only ones - when I was googling a couple of phrases to see if the article was on line yet, I found lots of newspaper articles (haven't read them yet) so it obviously got wide coverage.

[clonesgirl]

Having watched The Lakes and Cracker, these days I steer well clear of any TV series written by Mr McGovern. Let's just say lessons learnt. I've never heard of Accused but no doubt it will turn up on TV screens here too - worse luck. Thanks for the warning. I'll be steering well clear of it. ;)

[dorsetgirl.livejournal.com]

I watched the first episode of The Lakes a couple of years back, purely for John Simm's bum, and I very much enjoyed his episode of Cracker, but I can't say that McGovern's attitude off-screen gives me much incentive to watch anything else of his.

A classic recently was "I admire soldiers because they're from my social class". For God's sake, narrow-minded or what.

To be honest, I would very much like to have seen Christopher Eccleston's episode of Accused, but I don't get to watch much TV so it will probably never happen.

I seem to be up to my ears with kids' school stuff at the moment, plus my family history obsession has re-awakened, so I don't seem to be around much online nowadays, but I do like to post the odd rant or comment so people know I'm still alive and will be back at some point!