Unlike most journalistic cobble jobs, this collection of Nigel Farndale’s interviews from the Sunday Telegraph has a real sparkle: intelligent, irreverent and often unexpectedly kindly. It makes you laugh and, occasionally, it makes you gasp.
Over the past five years he has quietly garnered a reputation as one of the best inquisitors, up there with Lynn Barber if not yet so fearsome. After absorbing all that holy writ from rampant egos, most interviewers end up feeling like a piece of old blotting-paper and pull out of the game. Farndale is still resilient. Flirtation, Seduction, Betrayal – for him the weekly confrontation is an encapsulated love affair.
He does his homework on his heroes and villains, and then is prepared to be surprised. David Starkey, ‘The Rudest Man in Britain’, he found to be ‘friendly, incorrigible, a good laugh’. James Hewitt, ‘The Most Hated Man in Britain’, wasn’t a real villain at all, not even a real cad, just a bit of a dumbo, only good at two things: horses and sex.
Geoffrey (‘Shut oop’) Boycott, who is only good at ‘creakit’, was as ‘bloody- minded’ as expected. When questioned about his many lawsuits he launched into a series of ‘I have the papers’ monologues worthy of Harold Pinter’s Caretaker. Paul McCartney turned out to be ‘as cold and dry as his handshake’. At the time Farndale met him he was trying to wangle billing above John Lennon for their songs: ‘It’s not enough that he’s credited jointly with writing the soundtrack to our lives, he wants his name to come first.’
Like many love affairs these interviews sometimes end in tears. Sir Tim Rice threatened to duff him up after he was described as ‘the man who was given a knighthood simply for rhyming district with biscuit’.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in