What was shocking about Damien Hirst’s appearance on Desert Island Discs on Sunday was not his admission on air that he lost his £20,000 Turner Prize cheque, and then discovered he had spent it all in the Groucho Club bar. Or his account of his early teens drinking cider beneath the pylons, shoplifting, burgling, always in trouble. A boy for whom ‘Crime is creative’. No, what was truly surprising was just how predictable are his thoughts about his art, his success, his place in the cultural life of GB.
Hirst gave very little away, but not in an intriguing, there must be more going on underneath kind of way. The rigidly formulaic DID is not best designed for conversational revelations or deep-seated insights. Yet by the end of the programme it was impossible not to wonder: is this all there is behind the dots, dead cows, sharks and maggots?
When Kirsty Young asked Hirst how hard it was to give up drink and drugs after a half-lifetime of overuse, he replied that he had to learn how to be sober, how to socialise, how to be in a public situation.
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