De Vere Society member Malcolm Blackmoor reports on BBC-TV series “It’s Only a Theory” featuring Stratfordian Stanley Wells.
Purring & Preening from Professor Wells
Malcolm Blackmoor
Stanley Wells had a free run and a triumph last night, October 20, 2009, on a tv programme called “It’s only a Theory”. The show is a lightweight entertainment in which someone has a few minutes to propose a theory to three panelists and then, after a few questions, they give or don’t give it an official stamp.
I started watching it by chance and, after someone with a modification to the chaos theory, to my amazement Professor Stanley Wells arrived. (“It’s Only a Theory” Episode 3, 2009)
It was a superb assured performance as nobody challenged or asked for proof on anything Wells said. He, as usual, implied that Stratfordianism is totally supported by evidence and he wasn’t asked what that evidence was – which is the brilliant sleight of hand they use because the general public has no idea that there is no evidence, and he wasn’t made to face anything in Diana Price’s book. (See Shakespeare’s Unorthodox Biography by Diana Price.)
Whilst assuring everyone that it was possible to have “an excellent education” in Stratford, accusing doubters of snobbery and using Oxford’s death date as a comedy brush off, (and taking longer to rubbish the case for Marlowe), he happily yielded the possibility of collaboration early and late. This all took about five minutes as the programme has a few “rounds” in half an hour.
For that reason the voting was:
One person agreed with Wells because he didn’t want to take the chance of Wells having a stroke if he didn’t.
Another agreed because he was attracted by the idea of accepting one theory that destroyed hundreds of others.
The third person disagreed because she was intrigued by the collaboration idea and wanted to know more.This was Kirsty Young, a most able broadcaster and a possibility for further enlightenment.
It is, as I said, a lightweight programme but will have been seen by many people who could have been presented with basic disagreements to Wells, had anyone known anything about it.
Oh he was confident, funny, smart and lively and in a very good mood.
Something about ‘cudgeling the wretch . . . .” (Henry IV Part One – first tavern scene ?)
I happened to have my hard disc/DVD recorder switched on so I could then rewind and record it. Maybe it should be played at the next De Vere Society meeting to allow us to rehearse the questions that would have wiped the confident smirk from his face, and left my cats as the only purrers in the room.
