I am that evil TV producer who writes history in the present tense that Adrian Chiles detests (I love history programmes. But there’s one trend that makes my blood boil…, 6 September). I love reading his articles; he’s a fantastic writer. But I think he’s slam-dunk wrong about this.
Putting history in the present tense is not the result of a fad. It’s an attempt to change how we perceive it. When history is happening, it’s happening now. The players do not have the benefit of our hindsight – they are in that moment, and they only have the information available to them. And that is how we want the audience to experience it. Context from things they don’t know is incredibly valuable to us, but it will never explain the actions they take because, you know, they didn’t know it.
