Chris4877
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editHello, Chris4877, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
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before the question. Again, welcome! CherryX (talk) 10:14, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Peter Bowles
editHi, thanks for your contribution to that article. I must say, I don't think that 'next' is illogical in the sentence; I think the writer intended to contrast 'comedy' with 'drama' (which is logical enough) and to suggest that the BBC didn't want Bowles to be typecast. After all, a typecast actor is less useful. On that reading of the sentence, it seems that Bowles (who seems a very energetic man and eager to please) went out and got himself a drama to play in! Harfarhs (talk) 21:34, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
Hello, there! Thank you for your interest and for your suggestion, which has prompted me to do further research in an attempt to unearth some original sources in support of my theory. It is unfortunate that the sentence in question was not accompanied by a reference to the page in Peter Bowles' autobiography, where, (I assume), the context of that remark from somebody in the BBC is explained in greater detail. Peter Bowles' autobiography, Ask Me If I'm Happy, (Simon & Schuster, 2010), is shown in the "References" section of the article. Now, whilst I don't have access to the book itself, I have found several newspaper articles referring to the book, and one article in particular, (which I shall add to the citation at the end of the sentence in question, as well as a link which I shall include in the "References" section), contains the following lines:
"It was during the recording of the second series of To The Manor Born that I was approached in a friendly manner in the BBC canteen by a senior drama producer who congratulated me on my success, but said to me: 'You do realise don't you, that you will never work in drama again?' I felt my blood run cold. 'Why do you say that?' I asked. 'Because,' he replied, 'you have joined the other side.' I could hardly believe what I was hearing. I had, it seemed, been totally innocent of the way that theatre and TV worked at that time - that there was the very sharpest of divides between the way sitcom actors, TV actors in general, soap actors in particular, and serious theatre actors were regarded by the directors and producers who employed them. It was a chilling statement, a threat almost - although, of course, it wasn't intended to be - that changed the course of my life yet again, filling me with an overwhelming determination to get back into serious drama and back on to the stage. Which is why, even while I was recording the final episodes of To The Manor Born, I had already set to work outlining an idea I'd had for a drama series about a gossip columnist, inspired in part by this newspaper's late and legendary diarist Nigel Dempster, a close friend of mine. It was to become Lytton's Diary, and would run for two highly successful series."
The article, from which I quoted the lines above, is stated to have been adapted from Peter Bowles' autobiography, and I would suggest that it supports my theory that the word, "never," is the correct one to use in the context of the sentence in question. (If I remember correctly, in the summary to my original edit, I suggested that the word, "next," may well have been a typographical error). Chris4877 (talk) 00:46, 15 July 2014 (UTC)