I regret my bust-up with the Bee Gees: Clive Anderson interviewed

‘The really tricky thing,’ says Clive Anderson as we discuss the topic of being recognised in public, ‘is when they say, “I love your programmes —that thing you did with Margarita Pracatan…” Do I say now that that wasn’t me? Because if you let them carry on about how they loved your Postcards From…, and the Japanese game show, and then you tell them, they get very indignant and say, “Well, why did you let me give you all that praise?”’ It’s easy to understand the mistake in the abstract — indeed The Spectator’s arts editor made it himself in his email to me: ‘Could you interview Clive James for us?’ (If I could manage that, Igor, I wouldn’t be writing for a living.) But to get it wrong with the man himself in front of you? Anderson isn’t even sure that James’s death will solve the problem. ‘No doubt now I’ll have people coming up and saying, “I thought you’d died?”’

The Loose Ends host is preparing for a tour of his one-man show Me, Macbeth and I.