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Great Lives

Russell Kane on Evelyn Waugh

Great Lives

BBC

Documentary, History, Society & Culture

4.21.3K Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2018

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Comedian Russell Kane nominates novelist, Evelyn Waugh.

One of the greatest prose stylists of 20th century literature, not to mention one of the funniest, Waugh also has a reputation for being a snob, a bully, and a dyed-in-the-wool reactionary.

How much of this was a self-parodying pose, and how much the underlying truth?

Russell is supported by literary critic Ann Pasternak Slater. Both are unabashed Waugh fans.

Russell calls him "a ninja master of banter", but series presenter Matthew Parris says he can't stand him...

Producer: Jolyon Jenkins

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2018.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service.

0:04.7

Join me as I serve up personal conversations with my sensational guests.

0:08.8

Do a leap interviews, Tim Cook.

0:11.2

Technology doesn't want to be good or bad.

0:15.0

It's in the hands of the creator.

0:16.7

It's not every day that I have the CEO of the world's biggest company in my living room.

0:20.7

If you're looking at your phone more than you're looking in someone's eyes,

0:24.6

you're doing the wrong thing.

0:26.0

Julie, at your service, listen to all episodes on BBC Sales. BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:37.0

If you were a man proposing marriage to a woman,

0:40.6

do you think it would be a good idea to write her a letter like this?

0:44.0

I can't advise you in my favour because I think it would be beastly for you,

0:48.0

but think how nice it would be for me.

0:50.0

I'm restless and moody and misanthropic and lazy and have no money except what I earn and if I got ill you would starve.

0:58.0

In fact it's a lousy proposition. I'm jealous and impatient but there's no point in going into the whole list of my vices.

1:05.3

You are a critical girl and I've no doubt that you know them all and a great many I don't know

1:10.1

myself.

1:11.8

The writer is our subject this week, the author Evelyn War, and he's been chosen

1:16.7

by my guest, the comedian Russell Kane. Russell, is it true that you chose him as your special subject on Celebrity Mastermind?

1:25.0

I did, which some people were surprised by, but I find or have a weird connection with Eve Lynn

1:30.2

War in that I think it's rather like, you know the sketch with the two Ronis and John Cleese with the class system, even though I am the Ronnie Corbett looking up fascinated about the middle class that I long to become.

1:40.0

Evelyn War for me was the Ronnie Barker looking up at the upper classes.

...

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