PERSPECTIVE UKNORTH

"Woody Allen was knocking about in his disguise again, trying to look like an ordinary Joe, and they all knew who he was. I mean, it had been a complete waste of time..."

Melvyn, now Lord, Bragg, from Wigton in Cumbria, novelist, TV personality, lover of detail, interviewer of anybody in the world prominent in the arts, happily joined a queue of secretaries and assistants to buy tea and sticky buns in a South Bank studio canteen. No flamboyance here, thought I: Wigton would be proud.

He had been accused around that time of irritability, even aggression, in his media role. I observed neither, and therefore, I was irritable on his behalf. I could only conclude that if he was exhibiting irritability, it was because he felt irritable, and that this human trait was being criticised because in the higher reaches of our national life, human traits are not recognised. However, it does make me wonder: without irritability, would we have heard of Sir Robin Day? Or, in a former age, of Gilbert Harding

Bragg (pictured by Brian Duff) on Alan Bennett: Very difficult. 1 don't think I got to be very successful with Alan. He is a very masked man, privately as well as publicly. I do not know him very well (1980's) but I've met him on and off for 15 years. He is kind of shy and elusive; likes to observe rather than be observed; likes to be anonymous rather than in the middle. He would prefer you not to talk to him; would prefer not to be there, really. He would prefer to. be the guy behind another guy just looking at it. He does not much like talking about his work. One of the difficulties you have interviewing artistes is that you do meet a number who are genuinely prepared to take part in a programme - they really think it a good idea - but when it happens they do not really want to talk about their work. I'm like that myself. 1 actually go dry at the throat if you start asking me what my new novel is actually about. I don't know what to say. I'm writing it. 1 started it. That's it. It is in such an elusive state in one's head. Alan is like that about his work.

(Nothing has changed. Melvyn Bragg interviewed Alan Bennett for TV on 9 October 2005 and the programme was absorbing all the way; but one could see Bennett's problem with cameras. He is essentially a writer in seclusion.)See below for more of Bennett.

Bragg on painter David Hockney: He is difficult because he is so willful; he's mischievous and when you ask him a question he will deliberately not answer just to tease you. But he is very good. He always has a view of the world, David. It could change from day to day but he sees everything in an own view and tries to relate one thing to another, which is the mark of an intelligent mind. He's difficult to keep on the rails; not difficult interviewing. He'll talk for ever.

Bragg on Jonathan Miller: An interviewer's dream, different from almost everybody else. He really does not need an interviewer. He j u just talks. Like a Niagara, he pours and you run around with a tin bucket trying to catch it.

Bragg on Woody Allen: He is very concerned about his privacy, so we had to make an arrangement to meet him on a particular floor of a hotel, which he would come to in his own way - he did not want a car. A lot of fuss was made about this, and eventually he turned up and knocked on the door and said, 'I'm Woody Allen.' And we thought we had managed the privacy very well. Filming went well. He was open, talked a lot, and as we were packing up to leave, the guys working in the hotel, porters and so on, were saying, 'So you had Woody Allen in there today.' He was knocking about in his disguise again, trying to look like an ordinary Joe, and they all knew who he was. I mean, it had been a complete waste of time.

Bragg on Martin Scorsese, the film-maker: He was jet-lagged after a flight from Japan and was sniffing something all the time. I suspect people thought it was coke (cocaine). Not true. He had bad asthma and kept running from the room between reels. Rather disconcerting when people run away from you as you talk to them.

Bragg on himself. When you are brought up in a tight little town the possibilities you feel in your own head are limited. I did quite well at school. 1 did not think about what to do to be honest, but if asked, I would say teacher, or maybe civil service: it was as far as my imagination went. It never occurred to me to be a writer, or film director, or screenplay writer, in fact everything I have done since. Oxford gave me time to think about myself. Maybe if 1 had stayed home and been a teacher, I would have had a better life - who knows?

Really?

Geoffrey Mather © 2004

3 March, 2007