It is said that great art comes from great pain, but I’m pretty sure that the suffering wasn’t supposed to be ours. This is why, when I am put in charge of everything, my first decree will be a limit on how long we must endure so-called entertainment. (Sorry, world peace. You’ll have to wait.) Double albums will be banned, the plug will be pulled at concerts after an hour, podcasts will be capped at 40 minutes, and any film director who allows their masterwork to run over two hours will have to reimburse viewers for distress caused.
Furthermore, memoirs should comprise a single volume – if you insist on spinning out your life story over two or more books, you are probably a narcissistic windbag. Look no further than Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 500-page monster, Unmasked, which ends in the mid-80s to make way for a second volume. On realising, halfway through the book, that I had only got to 1978, I nearly burst into tears.
Meanwhile, my coccyx is still smarting from watching the excellent but endless War Horse while parked on a hard plastic seat earlier this year; and my head continues to throb from the three-hour beating that was Avengers: Infinity War. I’ve had shorter holidays than that. It’s with a stab of sadness that I now know I will never see the Cure play live owing to their well-known and evidently well-intentioned policy of playing their entire back catalogue end to interminable end. For me, it would take 90 minutes for inertia to kick in, followed by resentment and then actual physical pain.
We are, of course, living in an era when bigger is invariably seen as better, from food portions to fridges. Then there is a matter of investment. Art in all its forms is an expensive hobby – theatre and concert tickets in particular don’t come cheap – so value for money must be a consideration. Last week I went with my daughter to see Taylor Swift, where the top tickets were priced at £182. For that sum, you’d expect her to serve you dinner and drive you home after the show.
Television is more cost-effective for consumers, though it has nonetheless become one of the biggest offenders in outstaying its welcome, with countless shows insisting on leaving us feeling glutted and nauseous rather than hungry for more. It’s a trend that began in earnest with the advent of box sets (Friends lasted 10 seasons and 236 episodes), and has gone into overdrive as networks vie for our loyalty with season upon season of hi-spec drama. Thus we have witnessed once brilliant shows – such as Orange Is the New Black, Dexter, or House of Cards – enacting a slow death before our eyes.
It’s worth noting that two of the best British dramas of the year so far – A Very British Scandal and Patrick Melrose – have come in at three and five episodes respectively. In both cases I wanted more but felt a quiet thrill at being deprived of it. In a world of bigger, louder, longer, there is virtue in leaving your audience hoping for an encore.
• Fiona Sturges is a freelance arts writer
