Thursday 21st November
Hull Truck 8pm
Humber Mouths Debate
Reality TV � How Real is Real?
�8/6

Love it or hate it, �Reality TV� takes up a large part of the television schedules. From gameshows such as Big Brother to docusoaps and history programmes such as The 1900�s House, television seems to be turning its attentions onto �real people�. In the States, there is talk of using the Pop Idol format to discover presidential candidates. Does Reality TV give us a true insight into people�s psychology or does it merely manufacture disposable celebrities such as Jade Goody? Is the genre guilty of �dumbing down� broadcasting, or does it make the medium more representative and democratic?

Real lives have always provided the inspiration for fiction, but where do we draw the line between fact and fantasy?

Chaired by Claire Fox - Director of the Institute of Ideas, and panellist on Radio 4�s Moral Maze

With:

Felipe Fernadez Armesto � historian and academic, author of Millennium: the last thousand years and Civilizations. �He makes history a smart art� The Times

Boyd Hilton � tv editor of heat magazine, and contributor to Big Brother�s Little Brother and RI:SE

Victoria Mapplebeck � writer and director of Meet the Kilshaws and Smart Hearts for Channel 4, also media critic for The Guardian and The Observer.

Blake Morrison � author and writer. Books include: And When Did You Last See Your Father?, As If, and Things My Mother Never Told Me.

Close Encounters of a Literary Kind