'I think we owe more to Melvyn Bragg than to any, other single person when it comes to promoting arts and culture, and increasing our pleasure in them, it's always been pleasurable.' -- P D James 'The programme remains without rival and a long time ago it rightly became an important contribution to the vibrancy of the country's culture.' -- HRH Prince of Wales 'No television show in the last half century has done more for the arts than The South Bank Show.' -- Andrew Lloyd Webber 'The beauty of The South Bank Show in its heyday was its eclectic mix of subjects: from the high priests and priestesses of modern art, the Francis Bacons and Germaine Greers, to popular entertainers such as Billy Connolly, Dolly Parton and Dusty Springfield.' -- Telegraph 'These 25 vignettes offer intriguing comments on the film-making process and present valuable new insights into their subjects. Most have the shape and phrasing of short stories and his meetings with the gravest maestros read like mini-epics. Bragg's book is a thesaurus of delights...' -- Spectator 'A lucid, supple and valuable analyst of many artistic genres and their varying different potential. Together his essays offer some intriguing generalisations about the making and methods of artists.' -- Economist

Melvyn Bragg has written several works of non-fiction (as well as his bestselling novels): ON GIANTS SHOULDERS, based on his BBC radio series, 12 BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD, and THE ADVENTURE OF ENGLISH. He was born in 1939 and educated at Wigton's Nelson Tomlinson School and at Oxford where he read history. He is President of the National Campaign for the Arts and Mind, and in 1998 he was made a life peer. He lives in London and Cumbria.