Using Potato Peel Pie film to promote island is dishonest
ON A long-haul flight back to the UK, I decided I really should watch the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society film.
What a travesty of a film.
From the arrival of the heroine at a port that looked nothing like St Peter Port, on a boat that never sailed to Guernsey, it just got worse.
The fact that the film had to be filmed anywhere but Guernsey is a demonstration of the island’s short-sightedness. I am sure that any deal would have been better than letting such an opportunity get away.
For Visit Guernsey to then exploit the film to attract visitors to the island is a dishonest and deceptive act.
At least the delivery of a calf showed it being delivered from a Guernsey cow – I’m just surprised it wasn’t a Jersey.
Oh my goodness, I’m sure I heard a fox barking as part of the creepy soundtrack to the heroine fleeing her Devon cottage lodgings.
Some shame must be shared by the producers and director of the film in sacrificing any integrity of the film by using such inaccurate representations of the exteriors and interiors of Guernsey houses. But most shame goes to Visit Guernsey for endorsing the inaccuracies.
As I watched the film and saw view after view unfold that isn’t a Guernsey location, I became more and more ashamed of the deceit Visit Guernsey is committing.
The final straw must be the plane landing on a beach to take the heroine back to the UK... couldn’t they at least have used an airfield? We did have one. Obviously it is too late to correct the misrepresentation the film provides.
It is just so embarrassing to have to tell friends from off-island that such a Guernsey titled film wasn’t actually filmed here.
I calmed down and wasn’t going to bother to send this rant. However, the article in the Guernsey Press on Saturday 8 December, with the headline ‘Visit Guernsey uses Potato Peel Pie film to increase interest in the US’, reignited my anger.
That the States of Guernsey has allocated £530,000 to ‘capitalise on the UK digital and DVD/Blu-Ray release of the film’ and ‘on earlier promotion of the island around the film’ is quite shameless.
IAN MCCATHIE,
Moulin d’Hyvreuse,
Brock Road,
St Peter Port,
GY1 1RB.
Editor’s footnote: Visit Guernsey declined to comment.