Peter Hitchens:

‘Entertainment’ fit for Nero

How we used to snigger at supposedly ‘primitive’ peoples who feared having their photographs taken because the camera might steal their souls. But in the miserable case of Susan Boyle we see that they had a point.
TV, a foul invention which has done limitless damage to human society, can do terrible things to those who appear on it as well as to those who watch it. Once, I was invited on to that repellent programme Have I Got News For You. This was big-audience entertainment TV, unlike the ‘serious’ current affairs programmes I am normally permitted to grace.

The producers rightly concluded that we weren’t meant for each other. I despise the things they revere, and revere the things they despise.

But in the week after the show, the effect was slightly terrifying. Large numbers of total strangers suddenly knew who I was and had opinions about me. To a worrying extent, I was no longer my own property. Unlike poor Miss Boyle, I had known what I was doing and had some idea of what to expect.

Also, HIGNFY was small potatoes compared with Britain’s Got Talent, a programme I suspect would have appealed to the Emperor Nero.

Not merely does TV suck the individuality and imagination out of those who watch it, it is in love with the fake and deeply cruel to the wholly innocent.

Those in between shouldn’t feel safe either.