Monday - CBC documentary on Len Deighton

Earlier this year I spent a day with radio producer Philip Coulter from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Ideas programme, a long-running radio documentary programme. He was interviewing Len Deighton for a profile which looks at his career and in particular at the themes of human loves and fears, and office politics too, which drive the world of espionage in Len's novels.

Philip approached me, as the creator of the Deighton Dossier website, to contribute my thoughts to this programme which I was glad to do. We spent a morning walking around London chatting about Deighton's books and characters in the locations where some of the great scenes in the book take place.

[Update]

The profile was very interesting. Philip interspersed selections from his interview with Deighton with readings from Game, Set and Match and contributions from me from our day-long walk around London. I think it came across quite well, and there were some interesting new insights from Deighton about his approach to writing the book and his motivations behind the creation of the iconic Bernie Samson character. Also touched on was his views on the English class system, on the motivation of spies and his approach to writing.

Blog readers should check out the Ideas website. The show was broadcast on Monday evening, 1930h Canadian time, on a number of digital channels; it can also be found on listen again on the CBC website. The programme also has a podcast, so it should be possible for readers to listen to the programme in one way or the other.

If you listened to it and enjoyed it, share some of your thoughts on the Deighton Dossier forum or in the comments section of this page.