That Margaret Atwood and her partner Graeme Gibson are passionate conservationists is in no doubt after Sunday evening’s Brighton Festival talk.
But aside from Festival artistic director Ali Smith’s beautiful introduction, one could easily have forgotten the audience was in the presence of a Man Booker Prize-winning author with more than 40 novels to her name.
It felt akin to watching an interview with Bob Dylan talking solely about his painting, or Tony Blair ignoring his career in politics to discuss his guitar-playing.
Part of the blame should be placed on the talk chairman, journalist Anita Sethi, whose questions were simply too open, and frequently lacked any kind of follow-up. There was little attempt to link the worlds of bird conservation and the two writers’ careers.
The only real insight into their characters came from their discussion of how they first became interested in birds – Atwood through her etymologist father, Gibson after a memorable encounter with a parrot – and the way the two interacted on stage, Atwood filling in gaps in Gibson’s memory.
Otherwise much of the forced discussion – aside from a brief poetry reading from Atwood - could have come from RSPB spokesmen or crusading environmentalists.
A frustrating end to what has been an impressive Festival talks programme.
Two stars
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