Why do we excuse our writers their attitudes? This may seem like a strange question to ask, in an age in which the literary establishment is overwhelmingly liberal and cosmopolitan in its politics. However, it hasn’t always been that way, and it is these past attitudes that constitute our problem. Many of the great writers we revere held views that are repugnant to (most of) us now, yet we excuse them.

William Shakespeare’s writing may have produced magnificent speeches that any actor would happily debase themselves to declaim, but any person from outside of England who listens to half of Henry V recognises him for what he is – a jingoistic little-Englander with a thirst for foreign blood. If he was alive today he’d vote UKIP. When we read Dickens, we generally excuse his chauvinism, his racism and the anti-Semitism inherent in the character of Fagin. When we read Waugh we forget his enthusiastic support for the Third Reich.

Why is this? There is an argument for assessing people’s attitudes in terms of the context in which they lived. The social attitudes of the times in which Shakespeare lived are obviously very different from those we hold now. We cannot and should not hold Shakespeare et al to a standard that was nigh on impossible to attain in his surroundings and sometimes pretty damn difficult to attain in our own.

And, while we’re at it, should we not just offer these writers a free pass based on their genius? These are people with incredible skill, with brilliance that the rest of us can only dream of wielding. They are clearly not subject to the same standards as the rest of us – if Dickens was a racist, then so be it, but he was also the writer Dickens and deserves to be excused on the basis of the work he did as a writer.

However, novels, like all art, are valuable only in subjective terms – I like what I like, you like what you like, that’s simply the way it goes. That means that nobody gets a free pass. You may think that Conrad’s depiction of nautical life is an achievement to be trumpeted from the rooftops, whereas I may feel Conrad no more interesting than your common or garden scribbler. In this case you may find it easier to excuse Conrad his racist, imperialist portrayal of Africans than I would. I, in fact, may not excuse him this at all.

If we fall back on the argument from context, we still couldn’t give our authors carte blanche. Although it may be difficult for someone to espouse liberal views in a conservative age, it is not impossible. Take John Stuart Mill – a man who lived and died in the 19^th century, a philosopher and a civil servant, and, most notably, a proto-feminist. If he could espouse views that many in our own time are shamefully in opposition to, who is to say that his contemporaries couldn’t? Not everyone in Dickens’ time was an anti-Semite. Not everyone in Waugh’s time supported the Third Reich. If it was possible for others to dissent from these particular views, then why not hold these educated people, these ‘men of letters’, to the highest standard, rather than the lowest?

In any case, we may feel that it is inappropriate to criticise these writers in their capacity as writers rather than their capacity as humans. We may feel that we can separate their art from their personal views. As Andrew Motion put it when discussing Philip Larkin, the conflation of life and art “rest[s]on the assumption that art is merely a compulsive expression of personality.” This is clearly an unwarranted assumption. If we can separate the life of an artist and the art they create, then we may be able to love the creation whilst criticising the creator. This means that we no longer have to excuse our writers. We no longer have to say “they were a racist BUT their work was great”. If so, this raises an issue that has troubled me for some time – the reaction that most people have to that most hated of artists, Richard Wagner.

Why we revile Wagner’s work with a passion that we set aside when discussing other notable racists is beyond me. We certainly don’t have any justification for holding the man himself to a higher standard than any other artist and we can no more universally renounce his genius than we can for Verdi or Mozart or hundreds of more fashionable composers – its subjective. We also do not seem to want to excuse him on the basis of context. The honest answer is that his work was enjoyed by, even loved by, a group of truly evil people. That Hitler and his fellow National Socialists loved the work of Wagner is undeniable. That this alone justifies the hatred of Wagner’s operas is not. Plenty of evil people loved things that we do not hold under such contempt. Joseph Stalin was allegedly a huge fan of musical theatre and the lengths to which Kim Jong-il went in order to craft a tribute to his favourite film, Godzilla, are well documented. None of these things are hated with such vehemence as the work of Wagner.

Then again, there is pretty much no connection between musicals and the murder of millions of people. The work of Wagner seems to have a pretty strong connection to the anti-semitism and Germanic cultural imperialism inherent in the Nazi movement. However, I would say that this case has been overstated somewhat. The works of Marx have a pretty strong connection to Stalin’s murder of millions of people and yet we are sniffier about condemning them than the operas of Wagner – it is clear we don’t really follow this principle with regards to other works.

In addition to this, there is a great deal that can be said for these operas. Of course, is a good deal of evidence to show that they support an anti-Semitic, German imperialist view of the world. However, this is to miss two powerful objections. The first is that Wagner was in no way a German imperialist. He was a socialist for quite some time and, throughout his life was dedicated to sweeping away the old certainties that were perpetuated by the German establishment at this time. Only a fool or a zealot could watch Das Ring Der Nibelungen and think it a call to arms for German dominance. The destruction of all of existence occurs because of the corruption of Gods and men. Every character who lusts for power in Das Ring… is destroyed. This is hardly a ringing endorsement for imperialism.

The second objection is that the character that is most usually portrayed as a Jewish stereotype, Alberich, is far from the only stereotype in the literary world, yet he is held up as if he is the be-all-and-end-all. Ask people to name a stereotypical Jewish character in fiction and you’ll get a thousand Shylocks and Fagins before someone says Alberich. The impact that these characters have had on popular conceptions of Jewishness has far outstripped the harm done by The Ring Cycle, yet we don’t seem to hate Dickens or Shakespeare with the same fervour we reserve for Wagner. It is clear that we are holding Oliver Twist to a different standard, and demonising the work of Wagner without any real justification.

I am perfectly happy to separate the artist from the work. I think Wagner was a disgusting, arrogant and misguided fool. I cannot read his personal writings without feeling this way. It’s like spending time with a racist relative you’ve never particularly liked. His music, on the other hand, is beautiful. The same goes for Dickens’ writing and Waugh’s novels. However, we should hold all of these to the same standard. Not to do so is to risk sacrificing art on the altar of prejudice and losing some truly fantastic works to those to whom they do not belong. 

An average of 6.24 million viewers. That’s how many were watching the new series of BBC 1’s The Voice UK on its first Saturday night back on our screens. And with its return, it looks like the battle against the mighty ITV is set to recommence. Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway averaged 6.7 million viewers, so for now it’s ITV: one, BBC: nil. This could get significantly worse with Britain’s Got Talent’s return on April 13^th. Last year’s BGT final saw a peak of 13.8 million viewers watch Pudsey the dog win £500,000 and the opportunity to perform for the Queen. This glittering Goliath of entertainment is definitely not to be underestimated. So with The X Factor all but buried and the talent show format stamped on by variety-filled, family fun BGT, is it all over for The Voice before it has even begun?

After last Saturday night, it’s not looking good. The fantastic four (Sir Tom Jones, Jessie J, will.i.am and Danny O’Donoghue) opened the show with a group performance displaying rather varying vocal abilities including songs by Little Richard, Lulu and Chuck Berry. ‘A strange song choice; who were they targeting with that?’ I hear you cry! It seems the producers have switched tack somewhat, forgetting the younger audience in favour of piquing their parents’ interests – but how many people’s parents would know will.i.am if he walked past them in the street? How many parents know that Danny O’Donoghue is in a band called The Script? No wonder everyone got to the end of Saturday Night Takeaway before any suggestion of reaching for the remote.

Already The Voice is showing symptoms of the most common cause of expiry on any entertainment programme’s death certificate: predictability. It’s all so very predictable, first the sob stories (somehow every decent singer in the UK has one), then the really uncomfortable-looking red chairs and will.i.am speaking fluently using ridiculous noises. It’s semi-entertaining to begin with, but after a while you feel as though you’d give anything to see a man juggle with fire using his feet or a large woman get stuck in a hula hoop.

The problem is that there’s no chance of anything going wrong. It’s so cleanly executed, so controlled, that it feels more like a publicity broadcast for the four judges than a quest for mind-blowing talent. The hunt is supposed to be for ‘The Voice’ so why are we subjected to a judges’ performance, video clips of the judges every five minutes and rambling speeches about how successful they all are? Even poor Holly and Reggie are nowhere to be seen! Despite the title of the show, it seems the button-pushers are taking centre stage.

The most frustrating thing about The Voice is that the talent is good. The likes of Ash Morgan and Leanne Jarvis lead the way for a tough competition, the judges are experienced individuals, and there is potential to provide a fresh take on a format which is not only tired but exhausted. Executive producer Moira Ross left Strictly Come Dancing to become Head of Entertainment at The Voice’s production company Wall to Wall. If anyone knows how to make the sofa the Saturday night destination of choice it’s her, but so far she hasn’t quite managed it. Unfortunately for The Voice, the day of reckoning is coming and my bets are firmly placed on Simon Cowell.

Catch The Voice on BBC 1 Saturday 7pm.

Alice Lowe and Steve Oram spent seven years developing the script for Sightseers before it was picked up by producer/director Edgar Wright of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead fame. They then enlisted director Ben Wheatley, whose genre-bending 2011 film Kill List is one of the finest horror films to emerge out of recent British cinema, and Sightseers finally came to life.

The film follows Tina (Lowe), who is whisked away from her home in the West Midlands where she lives with her neurotic mother (Eileen Davies) by her new boyfriend Chris (Oram). They embark on a romantic caravanning trip across the heritage sites of the English countryside, but what begins as the perfect British holiday quickly descends into something much darker, as Chris’s intolerance of litterbugs, noisy teenagers and “Daily-Mail readers” reveals a tendency to murder anyone who threatens the peace of his idealistic escapade. Although Tina is shocked that her lover is a serial killer, she insists that the unexpected turn of events will not ruin their short holiday together. 

An unexpected and critically acclaimed hit during awards season, the film achieves exactly what a self-proclaimed ‘black comedy’ should: it doesn’t deliver a succession of blows which alternate between slapstick hilarity and cheap shock, but instead slips between the genres seamlessly and unpredictably, placing the audience in an unnerving position where we genuinely don’t know whether to laugh or recoil. Although the film has widely (and rightly) been hailed as one of 2012’s funniest pictures – Oram and Lowe’s performances as sightseeing brummies are pitched to comic perfection, and the interplay between the couple has all the warm domestic banality you’d expect – the most striking thing about the film is how genuinely unsettling it is, a dynamic which responses to the film have overlooked. Wheatley’s intense naturalism is almost surreal, and the way the film has been put together is reminiscent of the unconventional editing in Kill List, where the camera cuts away just when scenes seem to be gathering pace, or lingers after logical cut-away beats. The result is a strange rhythm which leaves the audience searching for meaning in places where there is none to be had. Notably eerie yet genuinely heart-warming in places, the complexity of tone in itself makes this film a sight you want to see. 

I spoke to Steve Oram about his experiences making the film.

Congratulations for winning ‘Best British Film’ at the Jameson Empire Awards on Sunday. Have you been surprised by the critical response to the film and how much people have embraced it? 

Very much so, yeah. It’s been a bit of a dream because we went into it with slightly low expectations, what with it being a low-budget British dark comedy. It’s always difficult for films like ours to do well, but it’s been amazing. It’s been embraced by people and we’ve been totally delighted and surprised. We were up against Skyfall and Les Mis for that award and we all kind of thought, ‘There’s no way we’re going to get this.’ So thank-you, Empire readers.  

Where did the idea come from?

It came from a sketch that Alice and I did at a show called ‘Ealing Live’ about seven years ago. It was just us being brummies, big brummies who go to castles and then kill people, and it made us laugh a lot. We kind of made it into a sketch and then those humble origins became the film over a long period of time.

You and Alice Lowe were developing the idea of Sightseers for a long time. Was it difficult to hand over the directing responsibility to somebody else? 

Yeah, it is difficult of course, but it’s a necessary part of the process, and it’s important that we had someone we trusted. We knew Ben [Wheatley] as a friend already: we had worked with him before and we loved Kill List and Down Terrace, so it felt very natural.  During the process he was very true to what we’d written and what we wanted to do, so everything felt very organic, which I think shows in the final product. When you’re with like-minded people it all works out well.

The dialogue feels spontaneous. Was there much improvisation or was it very tightly scripted?

It was tightly scripted, yes, but on the day we’d do one version on script then we’d go off script and do an improvised one. Ben’s great – he just kept saying, ‘Look, we’re in an interesting place, let’s just mess around here, let’s just hang around some standing stones and do a load of weird dialogue and piss around.’ Loads of good stuff came from that which actually made it into the film. So it’s very much a mixture of the two really. I think it’s difficult to improvise without having a tight script in place and a tight idea of what it is you’re doing, otherwise you just end up rambling and talking nonsense – which we’re all very good at. 

Although the film is marketed as a ‘black comedy’, the film is surprisingly moving. Was it always your intention to make the central relationship so ‘romantic’?

Yes, absolutely. It was almost the most important thing when we were making it, because while we knew that our sketch was funny and we could make a funny film that was 15 minutes long, we also knew that in order for the audience to stay with us over an hour they had to engage with the characters. The characters had to be believable and real, and all the work we did was really concentrated on making them weirdly sympathetic. If you were to take the killing away, they’re just a couple on their first holiday arguing a bit and falling out. 

So the characters are very real. Were they based on yourselves?

Well, you know, neither Alice or I are serial killers. We had to do a lot of research to inform that element of the role. To be true to that profile of a serial killer was very important. But there were also elements of our own characters within it, and Alice’s and my dynamic as people very much comes out. We always found that the normality is the interesting thing, really. It’s the truth of serial killers – that they are in many ways, and in many aspects of life, normal and socially adept. They probably do go to Crich Tram Museum and have a look around. They appear to be just like anyone else and that was what we wanted to go for, not to make them horrible, grimacing villains, because that’s not the truth of serial killers.

You mentioned the Crich Tram Museum – did you feel it was important to have these features of the English countryside so prominent in the film?

Absolutely, it was always central to the idea to explore these visiting routes. Lots of our holidays as kids, for both me and Alice, were the ‘British holidays’, and we would go to these places. The film comes from our affection for them and from wanting them to be seen. Also, the fact that Chris visits and cares about these places makes him more sympathetic. My Dad used to take me on holidays like that, and it was he who chose the route. He designed it for a research trip that we did about four years ago when we were writing the film. He picked out all these amazing places and most of them made it into the final film, which was pleasing. 

Do you prefer the writing or the acting? 

Well, in the case of Sightseers they’re almost the same thing because we wrote in a very improvisational way and they’re entwined. I think at heart I’m a writer and that’s sort of what I do and care about. Acting is kind of a bonus, but it is part of it and it’s hard to separate them. 

What advice do you have for people who are interested in scriptwriting, acting or directing for TV and film? 

Just do stuff with your mates and don’t be precious about anything, especially when you’re starting out and you’re young. You’ve just got to mess around. You’ll be amazed if you just stick your videos up on the internet and all that – there’s no excuse now, what with technology. But also, the other piece of advice is to be realistic about whether you have got it, and whether you want to wait twelve years before you actually get anywhere, because that’s what happens. It won’t happen overnight, it just won’t. So you have to ask, ‘Do I want to wait until I’m thirty five before I get anywhere – or maybe I won’t at all’. It’s a real big career to take on – it’s very competitive, much more so now than it has ever been, I think.

What’s your next project going to be? 

I’m working on various scripts and ideas, various film-things that I’m hoping to get made this year. There’s one about a terrible hitman who is totally unsuited for the job. He goes up to Shrewsbury to kill a man and his ‘simple’ brother tags along. It’s a bit like Of Mice and Men but with a kind of dark side. It’s a dark tragedy-comedy. I’ve been enjoying working on it and hopefully it will come out soon. More writing! More films please! That’s what I want to do.

Sightseers has now been released on DVD.

George Catlin was born in Pennsylvania in 1796, just as the world of the American Indian was being irreversibly transformed.

A visionary and entrepreneur, the sense of showmanship and spectacle comes through in the exoticism of Catlin’s portraits. The exhibition holds more than fifty, all of prominent American Indian Chiefs, fur traders and villagers. During his time spent painting and collecting artefacts in America, Catlin created an ‘Indian Gallery’, which he took with him to show across all of Europe and America. This is the first time since the 1850s travelling exhibitions that they have been shown collectively outside the United States. In 1839, Catlin’s collection amassed nearly 500 objects and portraits, yet he was bankrupted and forced to sell his ‘Indian Gallery’ to pay his creditors. He even sold two grizzly bears to London Zoo in 1840 after his travelling show had failed to attract enough visitors. The Gallery was later bequeathed to the Smithsonian where it has remained, until this selection was chosen for exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

During Catlin’s five journeys to the United States in the 1830s, his practice was to paint on site, sketching and showing his subjects their portraits.  Although some of the portraits are unfinished and have rushed brush strokes, owing to the haste with which Catlin painted, the subjects override the occasional dearth of technical skill. Catlin truly captures the considered expressions of his subjects, obviously aware of how acculturation was altering their society. A particularly interesting portrait documents the change of one Wi-Jun-Jon after his first visit to Western America. His profile is depicted in traditional dress, including the Mandan shirt, one of which is exhibited alongside the portraits. The other half of the painting depicts him with his back facing the audience; he is shown fully ‘westernised’. He wears a full suit, top hat and holds a fan, illustrating how all aspects of culture and custom were to be affected with the arrival of the West.

The portrait of La-Doo-Ke-A or Buffalo Bull is also notable for its influence in the later legend of Buffalo Bill. A Grand Pawnee Warrior, he sits with arrow in hand and the Buffalo horns across his chest. The portraits display the colourful ornamentation and ceremony of American Indian tradition in a manner that only a great showman could do justice to.   

Catlin’s work, as he intended, captures an important moment in world history. Many of the people depicted in his portraits would soon be affected by catastrophic smallpox outbreaks, but their memory lives in the ethnography of Catlin’s collection. The vibrancy of the American Indian people is caught in the russet ochre and burnt reds of the portraits, which remain to be a colourfully historical tribute to their subjects.