Author Topic: Melvyn Bragg book  (Read 3941 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Iain Fisher

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1863
    • Iain Fisher
Melvyn Bragg book
« Reply #1 on: March 30, 2010, 01:37:14 AM »
The South Bank Show: Final Cut by Melvyn Bragg

The Daily Mail savages Melvyn's book about the South Bank Show:

"What's great and lasting about the documentaries of Tony Palmer - among them Richard Burton, Peter Sellers, Liberace, classics all - is that he edits himself out. We don't even hear him ask the questions. Bragg edits himself in. There's Dennis Potter dying or Laurence Olivier speechifying - and Bragg needs to be there, in frequent cut-away shots, looking perky or fascinated or caring"

I would normally stand up for Bragg, but the Daily Mirror says "He additionally supplied scripts for our own beetroot-faced Fellini, Ken Russell. But the latter gets no mention in this book. Why not? Ken made some of the better, livelier South Bank Show episodes, if I remember rightly. That is to say, the ones with less of attention-seeking Melvyn in them".

Melvyn not mentioning Ken?  I don't think I will be buying the book.

www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-1262055/An-end-Bragging-THE-SOUTH-BANK-SHOW-BY-MELVYN-BRAGG.html