Damian Barr – Maggie and Me

Damian Barr’s eighties memoir, ‘Maggie and Me’, is serendipitously timely given the death of Margaret Thatcher a couple of weeks ago, but he avoided any obvious cashing in, and she appeared as a cameo figure in his stories of growing up in a broken home in working class Lanarkshire rather than the main character. Barr successfully steered the course between telling enough to make you want to read the book, but not giving so much away that it wasn’t worth buying it, and he was warmly open and frank in response to probing questions from the interviewer and the audience. His stories were funny as well as moving and there was much that the audience could relate to.

Studio Theatre, Brighton Dome, 5 May 2013

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