Wednesday 3 December 2014

Colm Toibin was on the telly last night - Imagine with Alan Yentob


Colm Toibin was on the BBC last night attended by acolyte Alan Yentob.
imagine
He was given the magic carpet treatment, ‘ten minutes in Barcelona’, done, ‘a stroll through Enniscorthy’, done, the display of the famous writer’s chair with lumbar numbing back, done, done, done. The BBC is like that; mention a place and you’re there. The low respectful feed of Yentob skied close to the ravine of mockery at times - ‘your countryman Samuel Beckett’. Toibin has a fine actorly voice with its regular scansion modulated by occasional strange pauses as though to fetch from a Bergsonian hidey hole a memory that eluded. Hardly, as the anecdotes and observations are well worn banalities sanctified by their long residence in the fanum of the writer’s mind.

Brooklyn his novel is being made into a film, the short story A Priest in the Family which I wrote about some years ago has been shot. I haven’t seen it. If it ever is shown on the telly I may watch it.

a priest

The next time I meet Professor Mickey we’ll have a good laugh. Three homes, how are you!
reputation

No comments: