Selling out

A revolutionary age is an age of action; ours is an age of advertisement and publicity. Nothing ever happens but there is immediate publicity everywhere. Kierkegaard, The Present Age (1846)

I could say that I do not know why I am always deeply disappointed when a well–known or famous actor gives a voice–over to a television advertisement. But I do know why: it represents – to me at least – a cheapening and selling out (of art and talent) that I simply cannot stomach. And I am not only thinking of actors. There is a certain poet, of a certain age, who lends a distinctive voice to the advertising of a certain supermarket. Can you imagine Keats doing this, or Thomas Hardy, or Wilfred Owen? No, I didn’t think you could.

What though of two of our finest Shakespearean actors – one of whom is also a fine Becketian actor – following the same path. Such lack of integrity I find almost stupefying. And just how much money do these people need? A false sense of values seems to have come home to roost.

“You’d do just the same.” Oh no I wouldn’t!