| |
|
(although who was that woman presenting it?)
Daisy Goodwin is a TV producer (she produced the Nations Favourite Poems, which had similar portrayals of poems) and editor at HarperCollins, specifically the editor of "101 Poems that could save your life", "101 Poems to get you through the Day and Night", "101 Poems to Keep You Sane" and "Essental Poems (to Fall in Love With)". They're attractively packaged collections of short, accessible poetry grouped by subject matter and aimed at a twenty-thirtysomething audience - a n attempt to move poetry into the profitable waters of chicklit and Chicken Soup for the Soul. She deserves credit for identifying a niche and for popularising poetry, although I suspect that the HarperCollins list may be favoured somewhat (this is rank speculation, of course). She claims to be on a mission to bring poetry to the Great British Public, and the cross-media approach of "Essential Poems" (book and series advertising each other) is another step in that process. Good on her, really.
Only problem being that she appears to be trying to Nigella herself, to become a brand in herself to push either her own poetry (or, more likely, her own lime-coloured romance based around a poetry group) or her career in publishing and other media, with the result that she is presenting the program despite being utterly unsuitable; for some reason she delivers every link with her lip curled up grotesquely and ictus scattered like spelt across her sentences, and her own posh boho Bridget Jones schtick alienates the hell out of posh boho Bridget Jones me, so God knows what it might do to somebody outside the target audience. There are a lot of people invovled in poetry and indeed a fair few poets who would have made far better and more accomplished presenters, and I'm not sure why in the greater project she or BBC2 didn't try to find one to work with on selection...John Hegley, say, or the smooth and sexy sound of Simon Armitage. |
|
|
