Summary
Francesca Simon is a writer, journalist and - most famously - the creator of the "Horrid Henry" series of children's books
She describes herself as "a giddy fan" of the artist, film-maker and poet Jean Cocteau
She celebrates his life and work with the help of expert witness Dr Andy Martin of Cambridge University
Matthew Parris finds out more
Producer: Christine Hall
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2012.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about the |
| 0:03.8 | podcast I work on. I'm Dan Clark and I commissioned factual podcasts at the BBC. |
| 0:08.6 | It's a massive area but I'd sum it up as stories to help us make sense of the forces shaping the world. |
| 0:15.0 | What podcasting does is give us the space and the time to take brilliant BBC journalism |
| 0:20.0 | and tell amazing compelling stories that really get behind the headlines. |
| 0:23.7 | And what I get really excited about is when we find a way of drawing you into a subject |
| 0:28.3 | you might not even have thought you were interested in. |
| 0:30.2 | Whether it's investigations, science, tech, politics, culture, true crime, the environment, |
| 0:36.1 | you can always discover more with a podcast on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:39.8 | Great Lives is a download from Radio 4. We hope you enjoy what you're about to hear. |
| 0:45.0 | Astonish me, said the choreographer Diagalev to the subject of this week's great lives, |
| 0:52.0 | and arguably our great life made a career out of doing just that. |
| 0:56.5 | He was an artist, a writer, a filmmaker, impresario, a playwright and a poet. He's been described as a prototype reality TV star with a flare |
| 1:06.4 | for self-publicity, as frivolous, as a dandy, and as a man of formidable cleverness, and one of his many friends summed him up with he was adorable |
| 1:16.6 | except for the times when he wanted to strangle him. Our subject is Jean Cocteau and he's proposed by this week's guest, the writer Francesca Simon, |
| 1:26.4 | creator of amongst other books the wildly popular Horrid Henry series for children. |
| 1:31.6 | She describes herself as a giddy fan. Why giddy Francesco? |
| 1:36.4 | Basically I think just because I love him so much and the more I get to know him |
| 1:41.8 | or know about him the more I like him and I'm just |
| 1:45.2 | wildly enthusiastic about him about his life about what he looks like about his |
| 1:51.2 | films his artwork I think that's fairly giddy are you even |
| 1:55.2 | capable of disapproval of him I'm very capable of disapproving of people who don't like |
... |
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