Rose Collis

She will be running a series of Brunswick Town “Walkie Talkies” today and tomorrow, starting outside City Books, in Western Road, Hove, at 2pm and 4pm each day. Booking is essential, call 01273 725306

Which musician/artist/writer/other figure do you admire?

I continue to be lost in admiration for two geniuses: Joni Mitchell, for her virtuoso guitar-playing, awesome voice and songs drenched in wisdom, wit and beauty, and Orson Welles, who really was as great as he thought he was, in every department and for staying true to his art and his politics, though the financial and personal cost was huge.

Which TV programme couldn’t you live without?

Twenty-four-hour news. I have to know what’s going on in the world, however biased and over-edited the coverage might be. I have no patience with people who say, “Oh, but it’s all so depressing.” Ignore at your peril…

Do you remember the first record you bought – what was it, and where did you buy it?

It was the 1972 re-issue of Sweet Talking Guy by The Chiffons, which cost 50p. I still have it (as I do all of my singles and LPs from back then) and it’s such a great pop single, which still sounds so fresh. It would have been bought at Cloud 7 (later Our Price), an indie shop in Wimbledon, where I lived, or from Woolworth’s.

Tell us about any guilty pleasures lurking in your CD or film collections…

Ah, the heck with guilt! I can say, without shame or embarrassment, I am the proud owner of The Thorn Birds box set and The Best Of Rolf Harris.

Do you have a favourite film?

This is a two-way tie: Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me, possibly the most important documentary ever made – it should be on school curricula.

It’s a painfully hilarious yet hard-hitting indictment of cynical US corporate worldwide power over health and lifestyle. The other is Withnail & I, one of the best-written films ever made which, as one of its co-stars Ralph Brown said, “Has no crap bits”.

And that’s something you can’t say about many films.

How about a favourite book?

McCarthy’s Bar by Pete McCarthy. I’ve read it so many times and yet it still reduces me to a giggling girly — usually in the same places.

I know the west of Ireland very well and it captures its charm and chaos perfectly.

Is there a song or individual piece of music you always come back to?

The Queen Of The Night aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The best three minutes of music ever written.

If a martian landed tomorrow and demanded to hear something which demonstrated the finest music the human spirit could produce, I’d say, “Sit down and feast your auditory bits on this.”

What are you reading at the moment?

As ever, material related to my projects and events in development. Which, at the moment, means books and articles about people including Dickens, Edward Carpenter, Dougie Byng, Henry Willett and, hilariously, my own books about Coral Browne and Col Barker, as I’m devising a one-woman show for next year’s Brighton Festival Fringe.

Tell me about a live music/theatre/cinema experience that sticks in your memory...

They shall remain nameless, to protect the guilty, but two (funded) theatre shows I saw at the Brighton Festival this year were so disappointing they inspired me (in a weird way) to devise my own — which is what I did before I became a journalist and author. And it’s turning out to be the best decision I’ve made in years, so I guess I should thank the people responsible!

Is there a book/record/film/play/person that made you want to do what you do now?

Nothing and no one could have directly inspired the unorthodox and largely unplanned trajectory my career as a writer has followed thus far. I just try to deliver the best I can, in whatever media I work in – be it book, historical tour or live event. That’s what you owe your audience, on and offstage.

If you get a spare 30 minutes how are you most likely to spend it?

Sorry, I don’t understand the question… “spare time?” Hmm, no, that’s an alien concept to me. I’ll ask the martian about that, once they’ve stopped listening to Mozart…