Книга: Melvyn Bragg «The Book of Books: The Radical Impact of the King James Bible 1611-2011»

Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg FRSL FRTS FBA, FRS FRSA (born 6 October 1939) is an English broadcaster and author best known for his work with the BBC and for presenting the The South Bank Show (1978–2010). Since 1998 he has presented over 500 weekly episodes of the BBC Radio discussion programme In Our Time.

Background

Bragg was born 6 October 1939 in Carlisle, Cumberland^[2] (now Cumbria), the son of Mary Ethel (née Park), a tailor, and Stanley Bragg, a stock keeper turned mechanic.^[3] He attended the Nelson Thomlinson School in Wigton,^[2] and then read Modern History at Wadham College, Oxford, in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Broadcasting career

Bragg began his career in 1961 as a general trainee at the BBC,^[2] spending his first two years in radio at the BBC World Service, then at the BBC Third Programme and BBC Home Service.^[4] He then joined the production team of Huw Wheldon's Monitor arts series on BBC Television.^[4] His work as a writer and broadcaster began in 1967. He is best known for the London Weekend Television (LWT) arts programme The South Bank Show, which he edited and presented from 1978 to 2010.^[5] He was Head of Arts at LWT from 1982 to 1990 and Controller of Arts at LWT from 1990. He is also known for his many programmes on BBC Radio 4, including Start the Week (1988 to 1998), The Routes of English, (mapping the history of the English language), and In Our Time (1998 to present), which in March 2011 broadcast its 500th programme.

A novelist and writer of non-fiction, Bragg has written a number of television and film screenplays. Some of his early television work was in collaboration with Ken Russell, for whom he wrote the biographical dramas The Debussy Film (1965) and Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World (1967), as well as Russell's film about Tchaikovsky, The Music Lovers (1970). He is president of the National Academy of Writing. His 2008 novel Remember Me is a largely autobiographical story.^[6]

Bragg is a Vice President of the Friends of the British Library, a charity set up to provide funding support to the British Library.^[7] He became a member of the Arts Council Literature Panel in 1969, since becoming Chairman, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society.

Personal life

Bragg married his first wife, Marie-Elisabeth Roche, in 1961,^[2] and they had one child, a daughter.^[8] He did not know that his wife had a history of suicide attempts. Ten years later she killed herself, after he left her for another woman. "I could have done things which helped and I did things which harmed", he told The Guardian in 1998. "So yes, I feel guilt, I feel remorse."^[9]

Bragg's second wife, Catherine Mary Haste, whom he married in 1973,^[2] is also a television producer and writer, having, among other things, edited the 2007 memoir of Clarissa Eden, widow of Sir Anthony Eden, and collaborated with Cherie Booth, wife of Tony Blair, on a 2004 book about the wives of British Prime Ministers. They have a son and a daughter.

Bragg has publicly discussed two nervous breakdowns that happened in his life, one in his teens, and another in his 30s.^[6]

A friend of Tony Blair, the former Labour Prime Minister, in 1998 Bragg was named in a list of the largest private financial donors to the Labour Party.^[10]

He is a supporter of Arsenal F.C.^[11]

Selected honours and awards

Bibliography

References

External links

• "Melvyn Bragg". Encyclopedia of Television. Museum of Broadcast Communications. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/braggmelvyn/braggmelvyn.htm. 
• Melvyn Bragg at the Internet Book List
• Melvyn Bragg at Contemporary Writers