Our thanks to the BBC

We’ve been both taken aback and delighted by the sheer amount of traffic on the blog recently – much of it related to our post below about flourishing Anglo-Danish relations, Shakespeare, tennis and the role of the BBC therein.

We were trying to work out what exactly was driving this spike in numbers and the arrival of new readers in new locations that have made Worldly Scandifriend even worldlier. Hello to you in Nepal. In Oman. In Bosnia-Herzegovina. In Saudi Arabia. Truly do you lend credence to our internationalist ethos.

For ages we couldn’t quite twig why one of the referrers in our stats list was the BBC. Surely this meant that people were clicking on a link on our story to access the BBC site?

Nope. It was the other way round.

So thanks to the BBC for deeming our blog interesting enough to include within its Shakespeare coverage (see the piece entitled ‘buzz about this programme’). The chief purpose of this blog is to discuss Scandi stuff – as in the case of the Jonny Marray and Frederik Nielsen doubles win at Wimbledon, there was some relevant Nordic association.

But given that we once again ended up talking about The Killing, we have to highlight the corporation’s wherewithal in both making new quality programmes (such as those within its Shakespeare season) and in serving as a conduit for first-rate overseas broadcasting that might otherwise fall off our radar – just as the Beeb has done in the case of Lund and Meyer and with so much Nordic television afterwards.

(In this respect, we’re rather wary of those people who complain that the BBC didn’t initially publicise The Killing enough – just as it gave its iconic early 21st-century offering The Office a relatively low billing early on. Those people seem to be missing the point a little – which is that the BBC did commission, did schedule and did persist. Ask yourself who else would.)

On a separate note, we suggested in our previous post that it would be great to have an exhibition of very Shakespearean-era real tennis (now perchance with Marray and Nielsen at Hampton Court, former residence of Anne of Denmark?) and see Sofie Gråbøl and Søren Malling reunited for some classic Shakespeare on the British stage.

Hampton Court’s link to Denmark – Anne, the consort to James I

We’re aware these are adventurous ideas and that museums and theatres are always pushed for time and money (and have numerous punters telling them what it’s all about). But if anyone reading this broadly agrees that it’s OK to dare to dream and that it would be nice to see Anglo-Danish links bolstered in an imaginative fashion, well, hey, cool. Make your feelings known.

In the meantime though, thanks once again to the Beeb for its support on this occasion. Often the corporation infuriates us – even more often we have nothing but good to say of it. That’s probably indicative of the sheer diversity and comprehensiveness of its output and outreach.

We remember seeing a BBC Worldwide advertisement in a residential (and far from busy) area of Rio de Janeiro seven years ago and feeling inspired. Who else would have bothered? As such, we agree with the notion that the BBC often is biased – in favour of human beings.

Still the best public service organisation in the world

Update July 23rd 2012: The BBC clearly has been doing its bit for Anglo-Danish relations, and for Søren Malling’s career, in the wake of The Killing and Borgen; Malling featured in a recent episode of the English-language Wallander. We feel Malling deserves his big break on a truly global stage; we await further developments with interest..