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To Mel and back in a life story
GOOD things come in threes.
That is certainly the case for Melvyn Bragg, the 68-year-old South Bank Show arts presenter, novelist and Labour life peer, currently to be seen in his new ITV series, Travels in Written Britain.
But, as he discovers the amazing literary links that exist all over the country, his own remarkable antecedents – in Cumbria and Hampstead – have also come galloping into prominence.
One is in the form of his new novel, Remember Me…, which he has struggled to write for more than a decade because it is nakedly autobiographical and is based on the suicide of his first wife in Hampstead more than 40 years ago.
He has written it for the sake of their daughter and to discard the guilt of the past, bringing to light his own upbringing in Wigton, his days at university, followed by becoming a BBC trainee.
The third hit also reappears from the past, The Hired Man, a musical based on the Cumbrian life of Bragg’s own paternal grandfather, who died in 1970.
The musical made its debut – with 21 numbers composed by Howard Goodall – back in 1984 with not the impact they totally desired.
Yet The Hired Man has since been greeted with sell-out audiences in numerous provincial productions – and has now made a real breakthrough. It is going off Broadway in New York.
Bragg is somewhat dumbfounded by the revival success of The Hired Man, originally produced at the West End’s Astoria Theatre.
“The show ran for eight to nine months in the West End at the time of the miners’ strike,” recalls Bragg, who lives in Hampstead Hill Gardens. “It was not a subject to lift the spirits – the miners were knocking seven bells out of each other on TV every evening.
“Some of the critics were good but, as I remember, word got round that it was ‘not a West End musical!’, even though it had won an Ivor Novello award against stiff competition as the best new musical of the year.”
But now The Hired Man has come into its own after years being produced in local venues.
Bragg added: “I am absolutely delighted there are so many productions in schools and colleges by young people, and now this one off Broadway.”
GERALD ISAAMAN |
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