John le Carré on The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

July 31, 2013 3:47 AM

John le Carré on The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Interview recorded for the BBC Proms Literary Festival. Includes actor John Shrapnel reading extracts (SLYT). It's slightly longer than the version which appeared in that night's concert interval and includes audience Q&A as well as pictures.
posted by feelinglistless (8 comments total)

I think he had some interesting observations on the Snowden affair in a clip I heard the other day. Mainly he was confused as to what Snowden is doing still dicking around in Moscow airport.

John Shrapnel is a great name. It's almost as manly as UK politican Vince Cable, and and former RAF commander Jock Stirrup.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 3:58 AM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

Oh wow, thank you for posting this. I'll be watching this on the train to work!
posted by strixus at 3:59 AM on July 31, 2013

This is fantastic, what a great way to start my day. I'm reading A Delicate Truth now and totally absorbed by it. (I do think it's odd that she calls him by his nom de plume, John. I guess I thought that off page he's allowed to be David. And those eyebrows -- they are like characters unto themselves!)
posted by thinkpiece at 4:15 AM on July 31, 2013

GallonOfAlan: "John Shrapnel is a great name. It's almost as manly as UK politican Vince Cable, and and former RAF commander Jock Stirrup."

I'll just leave this here.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:27 AM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Worth hearing. Thank you!
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:42 AM on July 31, 2013

I wanted this to be, like, an order of magnitude longer than it was.
posted by cthuljew at 8:50 AM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

@cthuljew

That tends to be case with all of these Prom interval pieces. Here's another brilliant one about Falstaff. And the rest.
posted by feelinglistless at 9:43 AM on July 31, 2013

Just watched this one.
posted by cthuljew at 10:53 AM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]