Andrew Graham-Dixon:stubble in paradise

by Johnny Bull
May 26th, 2009

The South Bank Show, perhaps inevitably after Melvyn Bragg announced it was time to move on, has been lined up for execution by the taste-free muppets at ITV (Melvyn seems to be more than happy chairing one of the best radio shows in our time).

Of course, we’ll still get a drip feed of magazine-style ‘culture’ on mainstream telly. Alan Yentob occasionally pushes open the studio doors of someone you really need to find out about. BBC Four does its thing brilliantly, but not all of us are on board yet. And then there’s BBC Two’s The Culture Show, with a pleasingly broad reach; a nugget of intelligence that seems to have the vitality to run for at least as long as The South Bank Show.

The Culture Show has at its heart Lauren Laverne, a one-time indie band member turned radio presenter, and Mark Kermode, agreeably critical film critic; they both anchor the show in a way that makes it welcoming and edgy; there’s a nice bit of creative tension abroad. They both know much more than their immediate (music and film) areas of expertise. You get the feeling you’ll stick with them even if they turn their attention to someone that would previously have had you wandering towards the fridge or the teapot. If they profiled Peter and Katie you might stay with it, or Dan Brown maybe, or even U bloody 2.

Maybe even Jeremy Clar…

Hold on. Was that the kettle?

Often the show features Andrew Graham-Dixon: a born communicator on art, a telegenic character who effuses on the latest Titian or Picasso show.

He’s got shiny Bryan Ferry hair (not maybe as pointlessly over-luxuriant as Melvyn’s, but whose is?) and knows and loves his stuff, as evidenced by a CV of hefty-budget art history TV and a string of books.

Handsome Willie Harcourt-Cooze (from an earlier blog) is a quiffster as well, and telegenic. He has to be, otherwise, well-born chocolateer or not, we wouldn’t be watching him chopping a sheep up next to his Aga while shouting anecdotes. No, the truth is, he’d be struggling to push his pralines without a fim crew. Like the rest of us Unglamourous Basterds.

What gives Graham-Dixon the edge over many other presenters is the look of sheer enjoyment and pleasure that instantly transmits the fact that he’s involved in a subject that is central to his life. He comes across not as someone doing the noddy shots while one eye’s glued to the Rolex. In fact, he’s so comfortable in front of the camera that he enjoys the occasional pitfalls, and we do too. Witness his awkward but infectious delight at the taciturn mistress of the keys as he gamely tries to light damp conversational squibs (in Italian, mind) while exploring the ‘Vasari Corridor’ on Travels With Vasari on BBC Four.

I was lucky enough to see him in action on that two-parter, as he took us on an illustrated tour of The Lives of the Artists, first recorded by the Florentine Renaissance biographer. I was mid writer’s block, putting together some copy for the Art and Architecture chapter of the upcoming Speak The Culture: Italy book.

I had a sort of epiphany when he showed The Visitation by the Mannerist Jacopo Pontormo; he gave this beautiful picture, which I’d never bothered to look at properly, such deserved and eloquent attention that I started right then, scribbling. He didn’t mention that Pontormo was a Mannerist. It didn’t matter. He did this beautiful painting. Look.

Like a jazz buff telling a Miles Davis fan about Benny Goodman. It’s not Swing it’s music. It’s genius.

The thumbnail is taken from a photograph of G-D talking to someone, as I recall, who befriended Picasso during the war. (He’s a good French speaker; he’s quite often subtitled.) I don’t know this, but he might have visited the Lapin Agile the night before (an early Picasso haunt) and after filming, sang and drank himself hoarse into the early hours. Anyway, he looks like this interview wasn’t planned; or it was moved forward. His hair hasn’t been combed, he’s dying for a café crème or three, but he’s up in Picasso’s old studio with someone who was a mate. He needs a shave, but it’s stubble in paradise. His face is a picture. Not a very good one, I know (it doesn’t do him justice; maybe I’ll find a better, bigger picture one day), but look at that face. What hangover? He’s absolutely delighted to be there. No, he’s overjoyed. You feel that if you met him at a party, he wouldn’t tell you what he did but he’d fix you with that astonished stare and say, “I met this mate of Picasso’s once. Couldn’t believe it.”

His passion is irresistible. Contagious.

I hate to say it, but we probably won’t miss Melvyn as much as we think we will.