Always happy to give a puff to the dear old BBC. So here comes the blockbuster we have all been waiting for -- Alice Roberts talking to MPP about the latest earth-shaking discoveries at Waun Mawn. We know what the "discoveries" are already, courtesy Bluestone Brewery and the National Park.
It's classified as a "factual" documentary -- but I suspect we will, as usual, see rather a lot of assertions dressed up as facts. From the blurb, all about "the final pieces of the Stonehenge puzzle", we know what to expect..... how many times have we heard all of that stuff in the past? At least a couple of times per year, I reckon, from different antiquarian tribes. But as Rob Ixer says (and he should know), Stonehenge makes all men mad (and maybe all women too).
But let's reserve judgment until we have seen the programme.
PS. On looking at some of the advanced puff for the programme, there is great stress on Merlin the Wizard and MPP's decade-long "quest" for the lost circle. It seems more and more magical and less and less scientific with every leak......... and Indiana Jones had better look to his laurels. I think the prog will be a very jolly romp. Maybe even a costume drama, with re-enactments, blood and gore, and wonderfully dramatic music.
Merlin and the Magic Circle
Indiana Pearson and the Circle of Gloom
I was intrigued to see that on her Twitter page Prof Alice Roberts was quite surprised that the BBC had "spilled the beans" on the "Lost Circle" documentary which she has previously just hinted at as a "top secret project". This is her show business persona coming through -- with an emphasis on maximising impact and maintaining suspense around a programme that will clearly be promoted as the latest enormous Stonehenge story........... the story is the thing, and let's not worry too much about the truth. I wonder if there will be anything new in the programme? I doubt it, although there will no doubt be something in there about the alignment of the purported Waun Mawn circle (or at least its purported "entrance") and about radiocarbon and other dates, which will no doubt be manipulated so as to demonstrate that the supposed circle was here "at just the right time." We shall see. But I'm rather intrigued to see how Alice balances her prioritising of maximum impact / biggest possible story against her professorial duty of promoting an awareness of good science in archaeology......
ReplyDeleteTalking of show business persona, Merlin the Magician and all that jazz, do you realise Weston - Super - Mare's JOHN CLEESE is currently looking for work and might be persuaded to add
ReplyDeletehis gravitas to any future riposte you might wish to make, theatrically, to the Master Pied Piper's newest revelations?