The BBC aired a new production of King Lear last night. ‘Aired’ as in let the air into it, took it out of the stuffy self-congratulating rooms where they do their business. It wasn’t bad, I suppose, though I did turn it off before the end, so it couldn’t have been that good. I suppose I was mildly enthusiastic. Different then to the announcer who introduced it as a ‘brilliant’ new production. I don’t know why the BBC, or ITV or Channel 4 for that matter, trail their own shows as brilliant. This is for us the viewer to judge, isn’t it? Enthusiasm, in general, gets me down. The less enthusiastic you are, the more more enthusiastic I am. This my rule. I call it: The Enthusiasm Quotient. By media, this is a rule more adhered to in its breaching than in its respecting. The announcer will be given her script to call ‘King Lear’ ‘brilliant’, I suppose. You wonder about the ethics of a chain of command whereby a subjective reaction is scripted for someone who has probably not even seen the programme. One day soon this kind of dissemination of false opinion (fabricated, the lazy construction of enthusiasm) will be called into question by important people.

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