How fortunate we are to live in a such a wonderful world. A world in which storytelling is being kept safe by the combined might of Hollywood and the denizens of academe.

At MIT’s new “Centre for Future Storytelling”, we’re told, “a handful of faculty members – ‘principal investigators’, the university calls them – will join graduate students, undergraduate interns and visitors from the film and book worlds in examining, among other things, how virtual actors and ‘morphable’ projectors [which instantly change the appearance of physical scenes] might affect a storytelling process that has already been considerably democratised by digital delivery”.

Apparently these good folk are concerned because people are not going to see story-based films such as The Duchess – their chosen example – in large enough numbers. I offer a sneaky counter-argument that they are not going to see The Duchess because it’s rubbish.

Storytelling in danger, my foot. Where to begin in hurling clods of earth at this nonsense? First, take the issue of the distracting modern world. I bet someone thought the wheel was a distraction when it was invented, or that the quill pen was a shocking innovation – or that Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy would put paid to serious drama.

Maybe Hollywood is worried because television has been telling stories so fabulously well. Let me count the ways: The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, NYPD Blue. Not forgetting Doctor Who, The Devil’s Whore, Little Dorrit, in case you think I’m biased. It’s all engrossing, complex, quality drama that people will watch – and do watch, I can personally confirm – for hours on end.

Serious storytelling in book form, incidentally, is not dead. Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, recent winner of the Man Booker prize, has gone on to sell 180,000 copies. And if you want to go and listen to a storyteller – yes, as they did in the days of the Arabian Nights – that’s still possible. If you can get a ticket, that is. Last month the Barbican’s 17th series of performance storytelling was sold out, as usual. If you hurry, you might still get tickets for a wonderful series of Tales for Winter at Shakespeare’s Globe, in Southwark, until early next month.

“The Centre for Future Storytelling” – I guess it sounds nice. But as long as human beings open their mouths and say, “You’ll never guess what happened to me this morning”, storytelling will have a future.

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