The Daily Telegraph let slip a most revealing fact:
“the BBC insisted that the play not be uncritical”,
The BBC was not insisting that the play be not uncriticial of a New Labour government which agreed to use intelligence from terrible torture in Uzbekistan, and cooperated with torture worldwide in the extraordinary rendition programme.
The BBC was in fact concerned that those facts were not given too much prominence compared to diversionary criticism of me for not being a teetotal monogamist, which is of course much worse than being a warmongering torturing murderous bastard.
Nadira was wondering when the media would stop calling her a lap dancer, when they would start using her married name, or mentioning her acting achievements (including the fact that she plays multiple characters in David Hare’s adaptation of Murder in Samarkand for Radio 4, in four different languages).
The answer I fear is never, not even in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/feb/02/david-tennant-samarkand-radio-4
nor in the EDP
I will say however that I think David Hare had done a tremendous job and produced an excellent play which is both entertaining and profound. As I gather is usual for David, he did a tremendous amount of research, even travelling to Tashkent to interview eye witnesses as well as holding a meeting with the FCO to get their side of the story. I am actually quite relieved that the production does not simply rely on my word for the key events.
Please do publicise the broadcast by whatever means are at your disposal.
Will do! Sounds exciting!
“Nadira was wondering when the media would stop calling her a lap dancer, ”
All this shows is how important lap dancers are to journalists. Remember these are people who really exceed three or four column inches.
ooops
“rarely exceed”
Don’t see what you are complaining about.
“Murray’s reputation has been enhanced by reports that he reguarly attended nightclubs while stationed in Tashkent, and by his affair with a young lapdancer Nadira Alieva who he married last year.”
Only this bit has not yet been published in the mainstream press..
“Not only did Murray do an exceptional job of promoting British interests whilst Ambassador to Uzbekistan, he also travelled throughout the country with no protection whatsoever, and uncovered multiple examples atrocious abuses including torture, and brought this to the attention of the British Government. He behaved as if he was doing multiple jobs as the lead hero in a James Bond movie, except it was for real and he didn’t harm anyone (except the reputations of Senior Members of Government).”
Tony
If there’s any justice in the world, Tennant should be allowed to play you as sympathetically as Tom Hanks played Charlie Wilson (another ‘teetotal monogamist’ ) in Charlie Wilson’s War.
Problem is, Hollywood had CW down as a ‘good guy’ (despite the terrible blowback his antics created), whereas the Beeb seem to have Craig pigeonholed as a not especially sympathetic member of the awkward squad. Which appears to show, sadly, that justice and celluloid confections don’t mix too readily.
Regularly attended nightclubs?
I’m shocked.
A few of us Brits over here in Congo are going to crack a few beers and listen in via internet. Any chance of David Tennants aurograph 🙂
I think the question might be who in the BBC insisted the portrayal of you be “not uncritical”. If I’d been commissioning a play, I would have made the same stipulation for two reasons. Firstly, complex characters are more interesting on stage and in books – I think that, on radio in particular, a one-dimensional virtuous hero doesn’t work. Secondly, there’s a tradition of sympathy for the flawed hero.
Speaking personally, I prefer all human beings to be presented as flawed and complex because that’s how I see human beings. If people are led to believe that only wholly virtuous people can stand up against evil, we’re in a pretty bad way. The idea of humans being either good or bad, with nothing in between, has been advanced by the rhetoric of Bush, Blair, et al with dreadful consequences.
I do, however, agree that Nadira is not being treated seriously or respectfully in press releases. As an actor she’s probably less able to object than you are. Being old-fashioned, I would call the press treatment of her “sexist” in that it diminishes her to one small aspect of her past career. I wondered about writing to the Guardian to point this out when I saw the piece but then thought my objection wouldn’t do Nadira any good.
I’m looking forward to the play and shall try to remember to tell people about it nearer the date of broadcast.
I agree. ‘The People vs. Larry Flynt’ being a good example. I’m not comparing Craig to a porn king; it is the dynamic of the characterisation which embraces similar terrain. People empathise with a flawed (i.e. realistic) hero. We admire Hamlet much more than we admire Superman – unless, that is, one is either nine years old or else is into body-stockings and florid displays of brightly-coloured undergarments.
Oh yes indeed, the MSM is likely to be being sexist and probably racist as well, plus there’s that old hypocritical British prudery and the ubiquitous sin of envy, the combination of which prove a potent recipe for witchhunts and character assassination. Media organs also are likely to have ben penetrated for all time by the agents of influence of the hard state. You ‘betrayed’ both the hard state and its social and racial class loyalties, therefore you are their enemy.
I look forward to hearing the play. I thought Tennant was wonderful in the Boxing Day Hamlet, much against my expectations.
The MSM is a hall of mirrors: I’m sure its images of you are as topologically eccentric as they are of everything else (so don’t worry).
As a PS, I never much agreed with Orwell’s objection to the ‘not-un’ construct – and then I see things like “insisted that the play not be uncritical”. I had to read that many times. Do they mean: “insist that the play be critical”? Or not?
@Vronsky – glad I wasn’t the only one! Re-read until you can parse speedily the triple negative in “The BBC was not insisting that the play be not uncriticial” 🙂
That said, I am not sure the two things you mention are identical. With the construct as it is, I think it means that being critical should not specifically be avoided, rather than specific efforts made to make it critical.
Phew!
Yes, not so much insisting that it be critical, so much much as insisting that it be simply an exercise in hagiography. Or something like that. Perhaps.
No, I meant yes, not so much insisting that it be critical, so much as insisting that it not be simply an exercise in hagiography. Wish I hadn’t bothered.
@jon
That’s why I didn’t really agree with Orwell – ‘not unlikely’ is not (to me) exactly synonymous with ‘likely’. But we digress…
The Guardian does have a caption for the photo of you and Nadira saying “Former diplomat Craig Murray, who exposed torture in Uzbekistan, with his wife, Nadira Alieva” and it says “While still married, he had fallen in love with a lap dancer, Nadira Alieva, whom he wed last year”
Maybe they’ve edited it to that since your blog post though? I don’t know
It’s probably to do with a rather English taste for circumlocution and vagueness. Orwell should have realised that. He could be a bit of a git sometimes, though I’m not unadmiring of him for that.
Have you thought about becoming a Tea totaling Monogamist?
I’m a tea totaling monogamist myself. I’ll continue tea totaling, but I might consider a couple more wives if I could afford a couple more houses. Or one really big house, with three master bedrooms and a indoor swimming pool.
Monogamy is over rated.
@arsalan: I have a desk at home made out of that!
Once my wife was staring at me. And I said what’s the problem.
And she said, “I know you are good looking so you can have any woman you want but you should realise that I’m a doctor so I can do a little operation on you while your a sleep if I want”
I’m a Polygamist stuck in a Monogamous marriage.
Jon Bloody hell, you must be loaded?
How much that that set you back?
I have two Monogamy doors in my bedroom. They are really pine, but I used some really good wood dye that makes them look like Monogamy.
What I really need is a Polygamy coloured Desk.
“They are really pine”
For the fjords ?
Frankly, I’d be a little concerned the BBC will do a hatchet job.
“We shall never refuse to be not unimpressed.”
Queen Victoria
“Tea is the great evil of our times.”
Confucius
Now for a tincture of bromide…
Craig
Your picture has disappeared from Wikipedia. No proof of copyright. You have to get permission to use photos.
Polly? Gammy?
Not uncritical is cool. Murder in Samarkand was not uncritical about its author.
dreoilin: no, only one of me, just bored with typing ‘technicolour’!
Richard, sorry for terrible pun.
Has anyone read
a) the Turn of the Novel by Alan Friedman
b) that Seamus Milne piece about Iran?
I’m a little taken aback the BBC would find it necessary to ‘insist’ on any such thing in the first place. Don’t they trust their authors to have any critical skills of their own without being prodded ?
The bbc are owned by new labour. The BBC did try and be independent at the beginning of the Iraq war, but were soon put in their place by threats that the license fees will be taken away.
Probably just covering their own backs? Insulting (or amusing) if you’re David Hare, I agree.