I've been fascinated in recent weeks by the three-part series the BBC has broadcast on 20th Century British novelists. Drawn from its extensive archive, it featured interviews with the great and the good of the inter-war years, the 50s and 60s and then the more recent period. The first episode featured the voice of Virginia Woolf (apparently there is no film archive of her), Somerset Maugham, GK Chesterton, Robert Graves, PG Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh at his most outrageous and many others, leaving me literally squealing with delight! The second featured the Angry Young Men et al, and the last one centred around the Booker Prize as its theme, with a very youthful (but ever disdainful) Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Angela Carter and so many more.
This all led me to the archive itself, where I discovered there are many full length original interviews, both with the authors I've mentioned and others who didn't make the cut for the three hour-long programmes. I've just spent a very happy hour watching a 1971 interview by Wilfred De'ath with Daphne du Maurier. Relaxed and natural, the programme followed her around her final home, Kilmarth (the dower house to Menabilly) along the cliffs to the sea in her daily walk and a view of Par harbour and into her writing room and comfortable sitting room. There they discussed the influence of her father Gerald, her solitude (she readily agreed to being a 'drop-out'), and her relationship with her husband Tommy. She took De'ath into the cellars where there were box after box of typescripts and the camera showed us the original of Rebecca, while she read the first few lines.
It's a quite wonderful programme, which I never knew existed (I was 11 at the time) and although I have the Cliff Mitchelmore interview, which can be bought from the du Maurier Centre in Fowey on DVD, this one is much better, and a rather more likeable Daphne emerges.
I anticipate many more happy hours exploring the archive, which you can find here.
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