City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

Dear diary, produced & directed by Sarah Barclay

eng

Dear diary

produced & directed by Sarah Barclay

A series which asks what we get from reading, and writing, diaries. 1. Richard E Grant, a diarist since childhood, uncovers the power of the diary. He considers the diaries of Joe Orton, Kenneth Williams, Erwin James, John Diamond and Rosemary Ackland and asks whether a diary should, or could, ever be totally honest, wholly accurate and absolutely true ------ 2. Mariella Frostrup meets Virginia Nicholson, the grandniece of her favourite diarist, Virginia Woolf. She visits former children's laureate Jacqueline Wilson to talk about the teenage diary and Anne Frank, before a trip to Leicester to meet Sue Townsend, creator of fictional diarist Adrian Mole. Contributors include Eileen Atkins, Hermione Lee, Deborah Bull, Kathy Lette, Gyles Brandreth, Ellie Kendrick, Simon Brett and John Lahr ------ 3. Rory Bremner asks what diaries can offer to history. He meets Victoria Wood to find out why she's so captivated by the diaries of a housewife living through World War 2; Edwina Currie to find out more about the most famous English language diarist of all, Samuel Pepys; Jane Clark to ask her about her late husband Alan Clark's diaries; and he goes to see Scott of the Antarctic's diary at the British Library with explorer Pen Hadow

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