The BBCs Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell isn’t a silly, childish, Harry Potter rip-off.
So why do people keep saying it is?
A literary tradition of adult fantasy.
Such an august library should speak for itself.
With all that precedence, youd think the national attitude to fantasy would be pretty well-adjusted.
English fantasy TV has yet to escape an association with childishness.
That sense of embarrassment is discernible in several reviews of the BBCsJonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
Even positive write-ups were iffy about whether the drama strictly qualified as grown-up entertainment.
TheNew Statesmans response to episode one typified the qualms.
I mean, there are CGI talking statues, for heavens sake.
This is pretend, they chimed.
On came the blinkers and off flicked the switch of critical investigation.
Talking statues equalled kids stuff, and kids stuff is silly and unsophisticated.
The Potter association was especially widespread.
Comparisons are obviously useful things.
They mean that it has talking statues, and as such, isnt worthy of grown-ups time.
That attitude unhelpfully muffles the rest of the conversation, stopping it before its even begun.
Fantasy is true, of course.
It isnt factual, but it is true.
Adults know it too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy.
They are afraid of dragons, because they are afraid of freedom.
And, it seems, of anything they havent seen done before.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell continues on Sundays at 9pm on BBC One.
