It’s a long time since I’ve been on the Today programme, two minutes of ephemeral fame, talking about Tony Hall’s proposal that the BBC should remake Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation ‘for the digital age’. Of course, the whole point of Civilisation is that it’s not about the digital age, because it’s about the message, not the medium. And nobody made the point that nowadays Kenneth Clark wouldn’t get the role: wrong voice, wrong class, wrong teeth, wrong views. My candidates, for what they’re worth, are Jessica Rawson, Lisa Jardine or Mary Beard.
I’d go for your own Tim Marlow but do we really want a Civilisation for the digital; age? Surely the BBC can be more inventive than that – but perhaps that’s why it’s in the mess that it is
Timothy Mason
shurely shd b someone beginning with C (for Civilization)? x e