An audience with Melvyn

I love the way he presumes I am intelligent enough, and wide awake enough, to follow the discussion he sets up on Thursday mornings on Radio 4 at 9.03. These programme always feature academics and usually you haven’t heard of a single one of them - but live, and exquisitely prompted by Mr B they enlighten and entertain with their incredibly erudite knowledge.

But that is just his current slot - he is probably best known for his South Bank interviews - and latterly for his books particularly the trilogy which includes ‘The Soldier’s Return’, ‘Son of War’ and ‘Crossing The Lines’ - and back in the mists of time for the paperback book quiz Read All About It.

This man of many cultural parts came to Richmond Theatre last week for a one-night only performance entitled An Audience With Melvyn Bragg.

For two hours, all alone on that fairly big stage, he kept an admittedly smallish Richmond audience pretty well enthralled.

In the first part of the evening he talked about some of the people he has met and invariably interviewed. Cleverly he let us know that these interviews are not always a breeze to organise - Tennessee Williams’s pooch, ensconced on his master’s knee, gravely interfered with the sound recordist’s tape.

The width and breadth of the interviews Melvyn has conducted over the years is pretty incredible - from Laurence Olivier (who provided some lovely actorly stories) to Dolly Parton (interviewed at home in Dollyville) and heaps of fascinating others along the way.

The man’s affection for some of his interviewees was one delight - Thora Hird was obviously one he cherished but Pavorotti occasioned some warm, homely tales too. Francis Bacon and his gothic appetite for alcohol made him a tricky one to nail.

In the question and answer session which ended this first part of the evening Melvyn was asked for his favourite interview - or the one he disliked most but he very simply and correctly refused to say. (This is a job for goodness’ sake and this man is a professional).

The second half of the evening featured his books and his writing in general - but the semi-autobiographical trilogy in particular.

The writing of these was nudged into being by the death of his father - he wanted their lives in Wigton, some truths and things seen and experienced to have some sort of memorial for no one lives like that nowadays. He particularly wanted some of his father’s appalling experiences during World War II in Burma to be recorded.

Part of the pleasure of writing a book is for Melvyn Bragg the research that goes on before a word appears on the page. Endearingly he told us that in his latest book he has made one whopping error - in a real area in Cumbria he has somehow managed to put a church on the wrong side of a lake not taking into account that the landscape has changed considerably.

I enjoyed the evening immensely.

Helen Taylor