My Moment with Albert Campion

Some years ago Mystery! on PBS featured a series based on Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion mysteries. It starred Peter Davison. The episodes were wonderful and even my friends who told me time and again that they never read mysteries watched the show avidly.

I tuned into NJN, the broadcaster of Campion, one evening during a fundraiser. I always felt sorry for NJN because they were competing with WHYY in Philadelphia and WNET in New York City for viewer dollars. Imagine my delight when they announced that the special in-studio guest for the evening was Peter Davison.

“Yes, friends, for a pledge of $35.00 you can talk to Peter Davison, star of the PBS series, Mystery!”

I seized the phone and was greeted by a lady with a clarion New Jersey bray. (Hold your letters filled with outrage and umbrage. I mean this characterization as a compliment.)

“NJN, CAN I TAKE YOUR PLEDGE?”

“Yes. I pledge $35.00 and I want to speak to Peter Davison.”

I surrendered name, address and credit card information.

“Just a minute,” said the lady on the line. “Where’s the CELEBRITY?”

I hear a murmur of voices and then I hear the telephone lady say, “STEPHANIE.”

“Good evening, Stephanie. Lovely of you to ring.”

This was said in the most beguiling British accent. (Heaven, I’m in heaven)

We talked for a while about Campion (I assured him the series had many American fans), his impressions of America, and his wish to do a play on the West End. Mr. Davison was was a delight and seemed to have the entire evening to talk to me.

I dined out on this experience for some time. I not only told my friends about it, they put me in touch with friends of theirs so that I could recount the experience. I was excited to tell the story over and over and any number of people seemed enchanted by it.

Then came my friend Jane. Jane, the reader and watcher of science fiction. Jane who once accused me of thinking less of her because she read science fiction.

“What did he have to say about Doctor Who?”

“What?”

“You didn’t ask him about Doctor Who?”

“Why would I ask him about Doctor Who?”

A great sigh that spoke of regret, resignation and not suffering fools gladly was released.

“He played Doctor Who and you didn’t ask him anything about it?”

“Do I get a reprieve from your scornful attitude if assure you my failure to ask questions about Doctor Who was the result of ignorance and not malice?”

I did feel awful about this oversight for a few minutes, but not much longer.

Over the years, I have given money to public television and radio and collected mugs, t-shirts, tote bags, books and God knows what else.

Those few minutes with Peter Davison, though I have nothing to show for it but the memory, remain my favorite thank you gift.

© 2014 Stephanie Patterson

Is Aurelio Zen Italian?

Don't get me wrong; I like Michael Dibdin's books. I loved "Dead Lagoon." It did a lot more than entertain me. It taught me enough about how to structure a murder mystery to help me write one. I miss having new books of his. He died much too young. His language, enlivened by his Irish education, is a knockout. You hear the "but" coming, right?

Here it is: I have enjoyed Dibdin's books enormously, BUT only because I willingly suspended disbelief and accepted that Aurelio Zen is an Italian policeman. That is not how he reads on the page. Almost all Dibdin’s “Italians” are, like their creator, essentially English. In the beginning, while reading him, this fact distracted me, kept me thinking about what a strange Italian Zen was. Culturally, all Dibdin’s characters, especially Zen, do not behave like any Italians I know. For instance, at three in the afternoon, when the day is getting to be too much for him, Zen wants a drink – an alcoholic one, not a coffee. Sometimes, he has an espresso, but with a shot of the strong stuff in it. So does whatever “Italian” he is drinking with.

Zen lives with his mother. How Italian is that? Well, yes, we all know that Italy has lots of adult male "mammoni" who are too attached to their mothers to move out of the house. But Zen and his mother don't seem attached at all. He and his mom don't worry about one another, unless there is an immediate physical threat. They don't talk much to one another. She doesn't kiss him hello and goodbye. He doesn't long for her food when he's out of town, which he is A LOT. She doesn't try to ply him with it when he gets home. Their relationship is all too quiet and distant. On the surface they are Italians, but deep down, to me, they seem typically English.

Then there are Zen's attitudes toward his fellow Italians. He looks down on them, which could work, but he hates them for all the wrong reasons. Not, as an Italian would, because they are inefficient or sloppy or cold. But because they are too complex, too difficult to understand. A real Italian would hardly notice this since it would be expected.

It occurs to me that there is a discussion we could have about Zen being atypical, not stereotypically Italian. Couldn't there be an Italian like Zen, who reaches for alcohol in times of stress, whose mother never kisses him or prepares him his favorite dish, who is essentially cool, rather than warm, whose sense of humor is dark and ironic rather than one that laughs at the slings and arrows of life in order to make them bearable? Sure. But why not make him just a little bit Italian, for verisimilitude.

The director and producers of the BBC television adaptations of the Zen books, currently airing on PBS Masterpiece Mystery, have gone Dibdin one better. Zen and almost all the major characters in the series so far are played by English actors. This does not bother me at all. The series takes place in Rome. Since early childhood, I have become accustomed to Romans, especially ancient ones, sounding like upper class Englishmen and looking like Rex Harrison or Richard Burton. Even in the HBO series “Rome,” those hunky centurions and emperors were Englishmen.

The Masterpiece Mystery Zen series, however, does something very odd with the casting. All the educated and powerful characters are English actors and sound very British and classy. Zen’s love interest, on the other hand, speaks English with a thick Italian accent. I suppose that is to make her appear sexier. But also, she is a secretary — not a person with a university degree or a good salary. The everyday people that Zen passes on his way around gorgeous Rome — garbage collectors and waiters, in other words all the negligible people with no status in society — they all speak Italian!

This is the kind of stereotyping that could drive me nuts. But instead I laugh at it. Want to know why? Because that’s Italian.

Annamaria Alfieri