Interviews
The joy of hanging out with artists
Lynn Barber finds painters and sculptors easily the most congenial people to interview - despite having received a death threat from the Chapman brothers
‘There are an awful lot of my paintings I don’t like,’ admitted Francis Bacon
While waspishly dismissive of many of the 20th century’s greatest artists, Bacon was also critical of his own work, in conversation with David Sylvester
‘People thought I was insane’: Graham Nash on the birth of Crosby, Stills and Nash
Adam Sweeting talks to Graham Nash about Joni Mitchell, the Hollies and the birth of Crosby, Stills and Nash in the Laurel Canyon idyll of the 1960s
Joy, fear and regret in contemporary Britain
For two and a half years, as Britain adjusted from normality to the most disorienting collective trauma of our lifetimes,…
We do love to be beside the seaside
In the garden of my house in Cornwall there is a smooth granite stone about the size and shape of…
Has Cuba’s revolution finally fizzled out?
In 1968, the US anthropologist Oscar Lewis arrived in Cuba with a tape recorder and a mission to capture the…
Did postmodernism pave the way for Donald Trump?
David Shields is an American author who has decided to collate many of the questions he’s been asked in interviews…
Contains moments of spellbinding banality: Radio 4's The Poet Laureate has Gone to his Shed reviewed
The interview podcast is a genre immoderately drawn to gimmicks, as the logical space of possible formats is gradually exhausted.…
The man at the heart of punk: the late Pete Shelley recalls his Buzzcocks years
Manchester, in the words of the artist Linder Sterling, is a ‘tiny little world’. Nearly three million people live in…
New Yorkers talk the talk
New York in a nutshell? No way. New York in a New York minute? Forget about it. The city contains…
'We knew there was greatness in these songs': Steve Diggle of the Buzzcocks interviewed
Graeme Thomson talks to Steve Diggle, front man of Buzzcocks, about orgasms, boredom and Pete Shelley
'You can't have opinions any more': Rick Wakeman interviewed
Rod Liddle talks to Rick Wakeman about lockdown, the Sex Pistols, and how you can’t have opinions any more
Meet the front man of ‘the most revolting band in the world’
Michael Hann talks to Corey Taylor, front man of ‘the most revolting band in the world’, about PTSD, Donald Trump and life after alcoholism
There’s no single trick to making money — just resist a noble calling
‘Beauty is pain,’ the model Gigi Hadid asserts. She’s one of the successful, rich people quizzed by William Leith in…
The director that everyone loved to hate: David Thomson interviews Peter Bogdanovich
David Thomson talks to the director about Buster Keaton, falling out of favour with Hollywood, and his mentor Orson Welles
How Enoch Powell fancied himself Viceroy of India — and other startling revelations
Interviews, like watercolours, are very hard to get right, and yet look how steadily their art has become degraded and…
It’s a lifetime of hard work being an artist
Once, when a number of Royal Academicians were invited to Buckingham Palace, the celebrated abstract painter John Hoyland (1934–2011) found…
The last survivor of The Birthday Party’s 1958 première remembers the traumatic first night
‘Mad, wearying and inconsequential gabble,’ sighed the Financial Times in 1958. ‘One quails in slack-jawed dismay.’ Here’s the FT at…
‘I was tossed out of the tribe’: climate scientist Judith Curry interviewed
Meet Professor Judith Curry, the sceptical climate scientist rarely quoted in Britain’s media
‘Money, money, money: where is morality?’: the Dalai Lama on David Cameron’s China policy
The Dalai Lama on Cameron’s China policy
‘I was facing truths I didn’t particularly want to look at’: Michael Moorcock interview
Cult novelist Michael Moorcock on fantasy, his father, and the London he loved and lost
‘The problem isn’t that we’ve been slaves to free markets’: Joseph Stiglitz interview
Joseph Stiglitz, the left’s favourite economist,on making the free market work
‘This stuff goes on being alive’: Maggi Hambling on the power of painting
Maggi Hambling on Rembrandt, Twombly and the power of art
Alex Salmond sets out his terms for Ed Miliband
‘Would you like a glass of pink champagne?’ asks Alex Salmond at 3.30 p.m., sounding very much like a man…
George Osborne interview: smaller government is not enough
George Osborne on his love affair with Greater Manchester, and his party’s need for ‘a bit of the Heseltine’
