Book Festival: Louis de Berniers and Simon Callow

Louis de Berniers

“Why do you have a French name?” was probably the most direct question Louis de Berniers had to answer in the Q&A following his Book Festival talk.

His answer, delivered in his impeccable Home Counties accent, was just one intriguing part of the event. Of French Hugenot extraction, de Berniers has a knack for writing foreign characters and settings with the familiarity of a born-and-bred native. Another member of the audience commended him on his depiction of Islam in Birds Without Wings, a religion she felt authors too often misinterpreted. His most famous novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, involved Italian soldiers occupying a Greek island, and was adapted into a film in 2001.

However his latest work, Notwithstanding, takes place in the rural, idyllic England de Berniers grew up in. The eponymous, fictional village contains a wide variety of eccentric characters and bizarre goings-on, and he clearly relishes being able to recount tales that took place so close to home.

The extract he read out, The Happy Death of a General, delighted and moved his fans in the packed-out audience. It has a senile, hard-nosed general live out the last of his years in blissful ignorance of the world around him, including his own increasing propensity for nudism. Other oddballs, such as squirrel-hunting “cricket ladies” and a convent of reckless-driving nuns populate the book.

The soft-spoken author had the audience hanging on his every word as he described Notwithstanding’s concept and creation. It’s a quirky, entertaining attempt by de Berniers to “preserve the memories” of his childhood. The countryside and the onset of old age seem to be strong themes in this collection of short stories, which will no doubt go down extremely well with his established fan base.

 

Simon Callow

Celebrated thespian Simon Callow attracted another huge crowd, charming all of them with a series of colourful tales garnered from a life in the theatre.

Kicking off with a story about the intoxicating effect of his first theatrical experience, Callow moved on to offer an esoteric discussion on the art of acting and some of its brightest stars. Treading the boards is all about “penetrating the heart of another human being” apparently, and in Callow’s opinion there was no finer practitioner of this art than the late Lawrence Olivier, a beloved contemporary of his. He raved about Olivier’s “sexual energy” on stage, describing him as the best actor in a generation. Paul Schofield, another “theatrical titan,” received a further touching tribute.

The charismatic, fast-talking actor and writer went on to reveal some of his more embarrassing on-stage gaffes. A poorly-timed pyrotechnic detonation meant that the opening lines of Aladdin were “Oh, fuck!”, while a faulty trap door nearly killed his Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol.

Though he enjoyed reminiscing about the past, he described the standard of stage acting as being much higher today than it was several decades ago. Things were “thespocentric” in his days, too focussed on actors rather than companies as a whole. He also bemoaned the disappearance of repertory theatres under Thatcher, which meant that the local link between many companies and their towns was lost.

 My Life In Pieces, his autobiography, is sure to be a goldmine for those looking for an insight into the inner workings of British theatre.