Afficianados of the long-running East Enders on BBC1 will have been discombobulated by the antics of the disreputable character Michael Moon. Part-owner of a boxers’ work-out venue in the fictional London Borough of Walford, he is, while a consistently creepy presence, both a snappy dresser and fiance to the multiple-murderer Jeanine.
What then to make of his recent appearance in the pages of the Times Literary Supplement (“TLS”)? It reports , in its 20 April 2012 issue, that he was filmed reading quietly, before the normal state of Cockney-land shouting interrupted by screaming was resumed, none other than the very venerable TLS.
The newspaper’s back page diary, written by Scotsman, James Campbell, tells us that a source described said Moon, as both an “aesthete” and a “psychopath”. He goes on to say that the soap’s script-writers had, some months ago, positioned Moon reading the TLS’s rival, the London Review of Books. As Campbell notes: “No, we are not to about to say that this demonstrates (Moon’s) essential wickedness. Yes, we are pleased to take it as proof that even psychopaths can change”.