Ilkley Literature Festival review: Stuart Maconie
Stuart Maconie - writer, broadcaster, unashamed wearer of red trousers - provided well over the allotted hour of insight and mirth this evening in Ilkley's King's Hall. The event was billed as relating to his most recent book, The Pie at Night (which even he keeps calling Pies and Prejudice by accident) but although he did keep referring back to it in passing, and read a short extract eventually, the bulk of his readings were from earlier works and the bulk of the delivery was comedic and anecdotal.
Particular stand-outs for me both revolved around his mum. The wonderful tale of him interviewing her some years ago about her taking the two-year-old Stuart to see The Beatles in 1964: she can't remember what the band played or who supported them, but can recount at length the weather, the neighbours in the queue, the refreshments, and what the family had for tea later.
The other one was a trait which all northern women (used to) have, of relational story-telling such as 'you know, Gladys. Worked with your mum at the chip shop before she married that feller from Rotherham with the false leg. He had a caravan two berths down from your Norman at Brid that summer, when Flo and Arthur won the teddy bear on the front'. It wasn't his mum's long-winded argument about Blackpool so much as the way Stuart Maconie linked it with Icelandic sagas, and northerners being the true inheritors of our forefathers' means of expression (instead of Agbard son of Gimli who slew the troll, we have Ethel wife of Peter who drove the bus. He put it better than I have though...). I like that idea, I shall return to it at some point, I'm sure.
Interestingly, the hall was only about two-thirds full, and I do wonder if it's the prices that are the problem. There was a list of 'over 100 events with tickets remaining', including some big names. I bought a whole raft of tickets weeks ago, and I got a shock pulling these ones out of the pack tonight and realising in some moment of madness in late summer I'd handed over nearly thirty quid for OneMonkey and I to sit and listen to an admittedly amusing raconteur for an hour. There are so many events packed into such a short time at the Ilkley litfest, and so much I'm interested in every year, but only so much I can afford to go to (and don't expect me to have any left over to buy the books).
As for Stuart Maconie's latest book, this evening's left me none the wiser as to whether I should read it. It has made me want to go borrow Pies and Prejudice from Big Brother though.