The South Bank Show: Philip Larkin
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- Опубліковано 29 сер 2024
- In March 1981 Melvyn Bragg travelled to Hull to interview the poet, librarian and jazz critic Philip Larkin for a production of the South Bank Show. The programme was broadcast 30th May 1982.
Larkin declined to appear on camera, a decision which Bragg later referred to as "a bit mean of him." The programme was the cause of much anguish for the notoriously mopish and reclusive Larkin. In August of that year he wrote to his bibliographer B.C. Bloomfield to say that he had recorded a number of poems for the programme, before concluding "God help me." Larkin's colleague James Booth observed that the poet found the experience "difficult and intrusive."
Used to take programming like this for granted.
So did we all.
Thank reality tv, lowest common denominator programming and privatising Tories.
So true! A programme of quality.
Larkin and Betjeman, ...I salute you for being - who you are. I give you a big, grateful hug across the years. Thankyou.
I can imagine Larkin deftly side-stepping that hug 😁
Posterity: the word that concludes Melvyn Bragg's introduction. Thirty years after Larkin's death, Lord Bragg remains the patron of the Philip Larkin Society.
God I miss this show,,,,,
Brilliant programme. I can't possibly imagine any of the main TV channels commissioning something like this now. The arts are poorly served and well and truly dumbed down. Thank goodness for UA-cam.
When it got to Whitsun Weddings I suddenly had a vivid memory of watching this back in 1982 when I was 17. I couldn't control my rubbery neck back then from looking from Hughes back to Larkin: they were the Borg and Connors of my imagination. Hughes spoilt his intellectual stature by writing crap supporting the royals and it has taken me ages to get back to him.
At the end Bragg plugs the Arvon Foundation poetry competition. It was judged by Larkin with Ted Hughes and Charles Causley. The entries were anonymous, but strangely enough the winner (who got £5,000, an amazing sum for a poem 40 years ago) was Larkin's Hull colleague and admirer... Andrew Motion.
And the poem (‘The Letter’) was as lifeless as a pebble.
@@jonharrison9222 Characteristic of Motion, from what I've read. He is a prime example of a slot being filled by a humdrum writer bc nobody better was available: poet laureate, next-generation leading talent, ambassador for the art, etc etc. Looks and sounds the part. Never mind that not one literate person in a thousand could quote a line of Motion.
Henry James called it 'remplissage': the need to pretend that every age has the same number of shining lights. His metaphor was a train that cannot start until all seats are occupied, so wooden figures are inserted to disguise a shortfall of real travelers.
Funnily enough, when Larkin was on the committee awarding the Queen's Gold Medal, he complained that it had become an annual event despite there being a dearth of worthy recipients.
@@esmeephillips5888 Ha ha! Thanks for that additional info.
@@esmeephillips5888motion was better than Duffy. And I'm partial to Armitage, although I think he's prone to the embarrassed poet technique of putting a joke early on so you know hes not "too serious" like other Poets. I like him more than motion and Duffy in spite of that.
This is how they used to do this kind of thing. Before the hegemony of critical theory, cultural Marxism and deconstruction. How lovely to see England and the English in thoughtful reflection. Just as Larkin loved it, despite his romantic despair.
i love this comment!
Why so reactionary??
absolutely; our great poet of the second half of the twentieth-century, together with that tragic interloper, Sylvia Plath; mordant pessimism with great wit and humanity. Son of Coventry. Handful of the greatest poems I think, with bravura lightness of touch. Melvyn Bragg looking so youthful ! What a gem.
_"the hegemony of critical theory, cultural Marxism and deconstruction"_
Interesting how people who know _nothing_ of the movements they condemn, do so in the terms of those movements. Even cultural marxism, which doesn't even exist.
@@StefanTravis What a retarded comment.
If it doesn't exist, why is it being discussed and why are you taking an adversarial stance.
It *IS* hegemonic, its in the schools, in the papers, on the telly; promoted by every big-bucks corporation.
When you have "Drag Queen Storytime" shown to infants, fisting and polygamy discussed in sex ed and "Pride Parades" sponsored by Goldman Sachs, it must take extraordinary effort to still remain oblivious.
Loved this, not least for the chance to see a 15-year-old Alan Bennett.
Not to mention Kingsley Amis's moustache. Presumably hastily discarded - never seen it anywhere else.
@@nickwyatt9498 See 'The Biographer's Moustache' by Amis.
I have it on my shelves actually, very funny. I forget the name of the actual hapless biographer it was aimed at, until the appropriately named Zachary Leader took the helm.
@@nickwyatt9498 Eric Jacobs, Garrick clubmate? Though they got on well. The novel may owe more to Amis's dislike of Andrew Motion and his somewhat parasitical relationship with Larkin. KA panned Motion's bio of Larkin.
Fantastic, thank you!
I never realized how realistic "The Whitsun Weddings" is!
This is great. Would love to have seen him interview Ted Hughes for contrast.
I'd have loved to see Larkin interview Ted Hughes 🤣
@@Simpaulme That would be hilarious. Especially if it was filmed so you could see and hear them.
Great. Thanks for this.
His talk-through of the Whitsun Weddings composition was fascinating. Pity we couldn't read the bloody manuscript because of the low definition...
Tptally agree. For me, that was one of the highlights of the programme. How fascinating, and to hear Larkin describing some discarded elements as 'drivel'. So reassuring to hear this giant wrestling with aspects of his work.
what lovely smooth skin had Andrew Motion , if they brought out Andrew Motion's lotion, I'd buy it
would it be better than his poems?
Or at least if they could give us the potion for Andrew Motion’s lotion
@@ajayaymusic If it kept you forever young, it would be Perpetual Motion.
'Everyone had servants in those days' - ROFL
Long time since I've watched South Bank Show as no longer live in the U.K. Was trying to figure out who the cartoons were at the beginning, only recognise David Hockney, & Woody Allan. If any body could tell me who the others are I'd love to know!
Heavens, Melvin Bragg & Alan Bennet look so young!!! This must be from the seventies.
Lucia Tilyard The fourth caricature looks like Tom Wolfe and I think one of them could be Julian Lloyd Webber and after that I'm sorry to admit that I'm stumped. Hopefully somebody can help us out. The interview with Larkin was recorded in March 1981, when Melvyn Bragg was 41 and the programme finally went out in May 1982.
Seán Ó Caoimh It's a wonderful bit of graphics, I don' think I've ever seen Tom Woolfe, but I expect they were all people who had been interviewed by Melvin Bragg. I used to really enjoy this and Arena, and whatever it was that had a bit of 'Dire Straight' as their theme. They've all merged a bit in my memory.
the theme to arena was by brian eno. it's a track called 'another green world'. i also avidly watched and loved both the south bank show and arena, as well as late review on bbc2 after newsnight on a friday. like you, i also left England behind and moved abroad many years ago, but from time to time i still look up arena and south bank programmes on youtube. as arts programmes go, they are rivetting.
muggedinmadrid Woudl you agree that culturally things have gone off a bit since then, or is that just me (prone to sentimentality and bias)?
I agree with you. Technology, the cult of celebrity, reality tv, competitive talent shows, light entertainment and popular culture and social media have derogated from the high arts. culture is still there for those who wish to seek it out, but it occupies even less of the limelight than it did before. i stopped watching tv and reading mainstream media 8 years ago and now seek out my own programmes of interest online. I've gone back to voracious reading and research. I'm not above watching cat videos on youtube or enjoying graham norton or epic fail / cringe videos - they can be fun sometimes too - but largely i find interesting things to read and research in traditional book form, on my i pad and online and I watch documentaries on history, literature, the arts, cosmology, philosophy, psychology and theology. This way i feel I am getting the best of all worlds; entertaining, engaging but also I am learning a little something about things worth knowing about. It's not for everyone as most people want light entertainment as a form of mentally non-taxing escape; but it works for me I guess.
Oh damn, I forgot to enter the poetry contest. Is there still time?
transitny Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. Go for it.
VVVat wyll survajve ov us iz lov
20:10 - Interesting philosophical point, can Prison ever be Prison if it is voluntary?
He was right about Modernism, though.
Is it too late to enter the poetry contest?
36:03 it's like laying an egg!
A Coventrarian. but he hated the place.. There is one of his pieces on platform one at Coventry Station.
are you sure it was Platform One..because he was heading south, presumably ? Two train poems, then.
The Whitsun Wedding starts from 20:16
This is what I'm looking for.
Hi there, do you have access to the Carol Ann Duffy episode? x
Hi, I don't I'm afraid. Sorry.
this was broadcast during the falklands conflict
A program about Larkin has no poetry in it until 6.15 lool.
There's so many other places to find his poetry
School In the Morning 😔😔
Much as I admire Larkin's poetry it is deeply depressing to the point of self indulgence,and I feel emotionally hi jacked reading it, as if I have been manipulated in some way..
The thing to do is just go with the gloom and enjoy it, like you do one of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads monologues. Or Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh. Plus, Larkin did write quite a lot of uplifting stuff. Try 'The Trees' for instance, a really lovely poem.
That has to be the worst American accent I've ever heard :-) But this is a fine programme and the South Bank Show was brilliant.
Didn't Melvin sound posh years ago.
Please check out the following video for more content about Philip Larkin: ua-cam.com/video/waMQYg8c8lM/v-deo.html
"We had servants, but everybody did in those days." No wonder he was bored.
Nick Campbell even the servants had servants I suppose.
@@gavinreid8351 We are all servants.
Some of us are slaves!
Melvin's nose was really flat in those days
McNulty ? Is that you ?😊
I dislike his poetry passionately. But gosh he was remarkable.
"I think he was a very well-brought up boy." But his father was a Hitler sympathizer. I love Larkin's poetry but if childhood was so gloomy perhaps it was because of his father's outlook and that of his mother who should have told her husband to go to hell and be out of it. Some of us had a sense of wonder as children; Larkin no doubt did but perhaps he wondered why so many others were happy when he found life as a child so unbearable.
parenting was different in those days, wasn't it ? Unhappy, constipated loveless middle-class parents were probably fairly typical; I was the next generation and my experience was the same; it just found expression through him with remaining a bachelor (the correct word for those times) and having a gift for language. He embraced his solitariness and we are the beneficiaries. I went to the same school as him and have degrees in Eng Lit, so I am a fan. The current librarian, bizarrely, was in my year group in 1982 and went back to work there. I feel like contacting the school to see if they have anything interesting in the archive.....
Why so misogynist??
CowyGriffon Because he wasn't attractive to women when young?
He was an abhorrent racist, too. In fact, they've shown him in quite a favourable light here, even with the misogyny.
@@trevscribbles prison for the strikers
Bring back the cat
@@trevscribbles Was that known in 1981?
@@trevscribblesOn the other hand he loved Jazz. Go figure