There are so many good programmes on the radio, and one of them is ‘Start the week’ which as you might guess is on Monday morning. It is on BBC Radio 4 and it is quite a simple format, four ‘guests’ sit round and chat to the current host Tom Sutcliffe. The guests are usually from different and various backgrounds and walks of life, but are brought together because they have something in common.
The guests today were Michael Holroyd, Herman Koch, Hugo Blick and Rona Munro. They are all writers of different sorts, so it was especially interesting to me to hear their points of view on character and characterisation, and the difficulties of writing about real people… a problem I never have as my characters are all totally fictitious! I have to confess that although I have heard of them all except Rona Munro, I have never read any of their work, although I have read several books by Michael Holroyd’s wife, the author Margaret Drabble.
Michael Holroyd is extremely eminent, and he went to Eton so he was given a massive advantage right from the start! He is a biographer, and his family moved in such circles he would have access to records and information about some of the people who wrote about through the connections he has. He came across in the programme this morning as very interesting and amusing, and told some stories about his family which had the other guests chuckling. His full name is Sir Michael De Courcy Fraser Holroyd CBE FRHistS FRSL… and among his books are works on Lytton Strachey, Augustus John and George Bernard Shaw.
Herman Koch is Dutch and he is a writer and actor… I momentarily got him confused with Helmut Koch who is a musician and composer… but Herman has appeared in films and on TV and has written short stories and novels too. He also speaks three other languages than Dutch… a man of talent! Hugo Blick is a TV writer and producer, and has also acted on occasion; one of his dramas is on TV at the moment, ‘The Honourable Woman’. Rona Munro is a Scottish writer, ads you might guess from her Scottish name, and she writes for the theatre, radio and TV, and her latest work is a trilogy, first performed this year, about three kings of Scotland who may not have the wider fame of James VI who also became King of England; her plays are a history cycle, The James Plays, James I, James II and James III.
The thing about programmes like this, even if you don’t know the guests when they are introduced, by the end you have some insight into their lives and their work, and maybe an interest in reading, listening to, or seeing some of what they have produced… All I need now is for me to be invited onto it… in my dream life maybe!
Lois Elsden 