HOW many conversations start with “did you see such and such on the telly last night?” Loads, that’s how many. The box, TV or whatever you care to call it, is an integral part of our culture. It gives us common cause and shared experiences, culture, learning and, most of all, good old-fashioned entertainment. And I use the term ‘old-fashioned’ unashamedly here. For one thing, the telly has been around for longer than most who are alive now can remember; for another, the search for amusement and entertainment is as old as civilisation itself.

Yet every so often, I come across someone who says “I don’t own a television” or “I don’t watch much telly”. And that’s fair enough, it’s their choice; despite what some of the more swivel-eyed amongst us think, we haven’t got to such an Orwellian state of affairs that we all have to tune in. But why does a goodly proportion of those people have to be so smug and supercilious about it? The remark is often accompanied by a follow up such as “I’m just too busy” (fair enough) or, more irritatingly, “I have better things to do with my time”. The latter often comes with a pitying look at those of us deemed too thick, idle or unimaginative to make our own entertainment.

Perhaps it was ever thus. The first Elizabethan age probably saw some eschewing the theatre because they hadn’t got time for some populist Brummie. I’m sure there were some saying: “You go and watch that bloke from Galilee preaching on the Mount, I’ve got more important stuff to do.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m an avid reader and I go to plays and shows – West End, regional and local – several times a year. But stage shows aren’t cheap. The Good Lady Wife and I treat such shows as a hobby, so we allocate money for them; others choose spend their hard-earned in different ways. Telly, on the other hand, is far more inclusive. Even without the programmes offered to us by Amazon, BT, Rupert, Netflix, etc, there’s a plethora of stuff on free to air. We all consider much of it to be rubbish, although few agree on what’s actually in that category. I’d classify the vast majority of costume dramas and soaps to be ‘rubbish’; many would consider programmes I like to be complete tosh. But when it comes down to it, there’s basically telly you like and telly you don’t.

Many of the top writers are using their skills for the benefit of television. And it shows. Programmes such as our own Happy Valley and America’s Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men and Breaking Bad show the quality that is out there. There is a theory that if Willy Waggledagger and Dickens were plying their trade today, they’d be working for TV. Mike Leigh, Dennis Potter (we went to the same school … but there the similarity ends) and Jimmy McGovern are amongst the finest dramatists this country has produced in the last few decades and their preferred medium is or was the goggle box. Yet some still look down on the telly.

Thanks to top quality documentaries and wildlife programmes, the average person knows more about the world about them than has been the case at any other time in our history. Look at the programmes presented by David Attenborough. Culturally and educationally, we’d be poorer without them. Then we all have our guilty pleasures; it’s good to stick one’s brains in neutral now and again.

Having said all that in defence of our most popular form of entertainment, I have to admit that I’ve had a sneaky peek at the schedules for April 23 and can tell you that there’s nothing worth watching that night. Not a sausage. So, if want something to do that evening, there’s the Lions Club of Devizes’ Spring Concert at the Corn Exchange – tickets available from Devizes Books, or see our website.