The South Bank Show: Philip Larkin

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."