Fantasycon

[la_marquise]

Fantasycon was interesting. It reminded me very much of Novacon -- very much a con for a subset of people, with its own well-worn rituals and behaviours. Interesting to watch, but I felt a little loose-endish. In programme and focus, it seems to have changed very little from 1979: horror ruled the day. Good things were Jasper fforde's GoH item, which was very poorly attended. a chance to catch up with various people, two truly superb Indian restaurants within two minutes walk and good beer most of the time. Bad things -- too much horror, a slightly grimy hotel and the tendency for the beer to run out in the evenings. Odd things: many people I almost recognised, but did not know -- fan-types, perhaps. Realising on the way home that we had spent our time exclusively with writers and editors. I now know why the pros all stick together. It's not snobbery, it's that they don't know anyone else. And something exciting happened which I'm not allowed to talk about yet.
I don't know if I'll go again: it was okay, but not gripping and the programme didn't excite me. I was on two items, one on Myth, which went very well, and one on New Writers which was less successful. Both had more audience than Mr fforde, which is just plain wrong.

In other news, here's a question: why is there so much written and performed about the Tudors? Even as I type, Radio 4 is reading yet another book about Elizabeth I. It has to be the most over-mined period in British history and (IMHO) one of the dullest. What on earth is the appeal? It baffles me.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

But she was none of those things. This sentimentality about Henry VIII and Elizabeth I baffles me.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

In reality she wasn't. But popular imagination has always seen her as that. That's the Elizabeth of Blackadder, it's (with varying degrees of concession to historical reality) Cate Blanchett's and Glenda Jackson's Elizabeths, I'd argue that it's there in Flora Robson's Elizabeth, and in a way it goes back to the romanticization of Elizabeth by Spenser. Elizabeth was a mistress of her own propaganda, and her image has been pretty much set in stone since then (with, I suspect, a big boost in Victoria's reign).

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I think we're incredulous at the ides of a female monarch who was more into power than sex. Or possibly , love.