Powerful dramas blur reality

I SHOULDN’T have been surprised when I read that some people thought Game of Thrones was actually a historical series.It shows the power of cinema and television.

More than a third admitted they know more about the TV show than they did about the War of the Roses, and 5% thought the conflict between the houses of York and Lancaster was actually contested by the Lannisters and Starks. The survey was commissioned by Sky History to promote the series Rise of the Tudors which will, hopefully, explain other misconceptions. Ten per cent believed Henry VIII had eight wives (he had six) and that Joan of Arc was one of them.

A spokesperson said:“British history is littered with so many important stories as well as iconic myths and legends, it’s hardly surprising that people’s memories can be a little foggy.”

It’s wonderful escapism to enter a different world and see it through the eyes of characters both fictional and real, so it’s easy to see how confusion might happen.

My bedtime reading in recent months has taken me everywhere from the Resistance in Nazi occupied France to the Roman Empire. At the moment I’m in Victorian England where I am enjoying the detecting skills of young Mrs Hudson, housekeeper and lover of Sherlock Holmes. However, 20% of people, in a previous poll,believed Sherlock, along with Miss Marple, were actually real figures from history.

When it was pointed out they were fictional, many of those taking part in the survey, very firmly blamed Hollywood. But what excuse did those have, who thought Blackadder, Captain Mainwaring, Clark Kent and Indiana Jones were real?