This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

Before we start, one production note.

In this episode, we again have quotes from Roald Dahl.

Rather than just have me read them in my Terrible Berthaish accent,

we decided to bring them to life.

So we use an actor's performance and some custom software to create a doll-like voice.

Okay, on to the episode.

Roll doll sits comfortably at home, giving what should be a casual, breezy phone interview

to a popular magazine called The New Statesman. It's 1983. Dahl is at this point, without

question, the most famous and most successful children's author of all time.

The BFG came out just last year and was a phenomenon.

The Witches is about to be published to critical acclaim.

On the phone with Dahl is Michael Corrin, a young theater critic.

Corin is just at a college.

He's not an experienced journalist or some sort of master interrogator.

This isn't some kind of brilliant gotcha moment,

but Dahl is in one of his dark moods.

Corin asked about a book review that Dahl recently wrote.

The book centered on the very thorny topic of Israel's invasion of Lebanon the previous year.

Dahl decides he doesn't just want to talk about the book

or his review of it.

...